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to tree or not to tree
After two years of planning, Trinity College replaces iconic 150-year-old trees
The university has planted two Ginkgo trees to replace the Oregon Maples.
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN today planted a two new trees to replace the university’s iconic Oregon Maples.
The first maple collapsed in June 2018, while a second Oregon Maple was removed later because of fears it could also collapse.
Both trees, which dated from the 1840s, had been undergoing a preservation process due to disease.
The loss of the tree caused shock among Trinity staff and students. Back in 2018, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tweeted that he “loved that tree”.
This morning, two Ginkgo trees were planted in the college’s Library Square to replace the Oregon Maples.
On Twitter, Trinity’s Provost Patrick Prendergast said: “I’m told they could live for 500+ years, and the leaves will come on in a few weeks.”
In a letter sent to staff and students last month, Trinity said that it had chosen the Gingko, which is native to China and has been around for at least 200 million years.
The fruit of the Gingko has a famously distinctive smell and is used in Chinese, Japanese and Korean cooking.
The letter told staff and students:
The species is very resilient, being resistant to disease, to air pollution and to fire; amazingly, individuals growing within 1,500 m of the hypocentre of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima survived.
Unusually, the plant is either male or female – one tree of either sex has been planted in Library Square.
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