The Tree of Forty Fruit by Sam Van Aken
If you have been keeping your eyes on the internet lately you have probably seen the shimmering tapestry of pink, purple, red, and white blossoms which is the “tree of forty fruits”. This is a stone-fruit tree which has been agonizingly grafted together out of numerous branches from heritage peach, apricot, plum, apple, quince, cherry and other rose-family fruit trees into a frilly pink Frankenstein of a fruit tree. The root stock is a hardy plum tree to which the other stocks are added one by one. The effect is simultaneously garish and beautiful—particularly in blossom season (though it must be impressive to see the tree in early fall when it is laden with heterogenous fruits).
The tree of forty fruits seems like it might have been designed by a mad scientist, a huge biotech corporation, or a high-minded super-villain (like Poison Ivy or someone), but it was actually the creation of an art professor, Sam Van Aken. Van Aken gre up in rural Pennsylvania and he wanted to save the vanishing heirloom fruits of his youth. In an article about his project in Epicurious, Van Aken explained why he is working to safeguard these classic fruits, “In trying to find different varieties of stone fruit to create the Tree of 40 Fruit, I realized that for various reasons, including industrialization and the creation of enormous monocultures, we are losing diversity in food production and that heirloom, antique, and native varieties that were less commercially viable were disappearing,” To him the number forty has a talismanic quality which represents superabundance. He has already created 16 of the intricately grafted trees and he dreams of spreading them around the country and perhaps the globe.
The tree of forty fruits is a living sculpture—a bizarre amalgam of trees, agriculture, and diligent manual artistry. It isn’t just a splicing together of different tree species, it is a hybridization of ancient fundamental human pursuits. If you told the nurserymen and sculptors of Babylon that we would live in a world with such a tree, they would applaud. So should we!
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August 6, 2014 at 2:04 PM
theaspiringhobbit
That is amazing. I admire that he created this not in with a “Victor-Frankenstein” goal (something like “I’m going to go down in history for my accomplishment”), but with the goal of the tree and its heirloom fruits going down in history. He’s preserving a heritage, not his own glory.
August 7, 2014 at 6:30 PM
Wayne
I like the Van Aken’s stated goals too (although, as an artist myself, I’m not necessarily against a bit of self-aggrandizement). Your comment got me thinking about the actual original novel Frankenstein. As I recall, Victor was not trying to get rich or famous (indeed he was already a rich aristocrat who looked down upon such things); instead he was trying to help humanity and surmount mortality itself. His monster was horrible to look upon (and ultimately acted murderously) but spoke and thought like a brilliant poet-philosopher. The failures of both parties in that book were far deeper, greater, and sadder than the desire for fame.
Boy, that was a troubling book. Maybe I shouldn’t have referenced it so shallowly in the article above, but the juxtaposition of delicate prettiness and spliced-together monster-being was too appealing for me to resist.
August 7, 2014 at 9:40 PM
Wayne
Also, you all should have seen my alternate post about the tree of fruity forts…
August 20, 2014 at 1:43 PM
Beatrix
I think it is rather Luther Burbankian rather a ‘Victor-Frankenstein’ type creation.
I wonder if some of the fruits cross pollinate due to their proximity & create new & unusual stone fruits?