BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
In California’s Sierra Nevada, giant sequoias have stood for millennia. The largest trees top 300 feet, live past 3,000 years, and are among the biggest living things on Earth by mass. Now, clones of specific ancient trees are being planted in Detroit.
Volunteers with Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and Arboretum Detroit have started placing hundreds of sequoia saplings across Detroit neighborhoods on vacant lots and underutilized land. These aren’t seedlings grown from collected cones. They’re clones, propagated from cuttings taken from specific ancient trees in California, including the famous Amos Alonzo Stagg tree. Detroit is the pilot city.
Why California’s sequoias need a backup plan
In recent years, severe wildfires have burned through several of California’s historic sequoia groves. Thousands of mature trees are gone: trees that were centuries old, in populations that are struggling to recover.
Conservation groups, including Save the Redwoods League, are working on new strategies. One is to plant genetically identical copies in different climates. If the original groves keep burning or drying out, clones elsewhere protect that genetic material from being lost entirely.
Why conservationists chose Detroit as the pilot city
Detroit has a lot of vacant land, and the project treats that as an asset. Sequoias planted here can eventually provide shade, filter air pollution, and sequester carbon, adding to the city’s tree canopy while serving a broader conservation goal.
What cloning an ancient tree actually means
Archangel Ancient Tree Archive works from a straightforward premise: the genetics of old, resilient trees are worth preserving the same way seeds are. Propagating clones rather than planting from seed keeps the exact genetic profile intact, including traits that helped specific trees survive thousands of years of drought, fire, and disease.
The saplings going into Detroit right now fit in the palm of a hand. Some won’t make it. The ones that do will still be growing long after everything around them is gone.
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