c. Sam Van Aken, Tree of 40 Fruits

TREE OF 40 FRUITS

National Geographic, Syracuse University, USA
2015, 4 min 5 sec

Sam Van Aken, an artist and professor at Syracuse University, uses “chip grafting” to create trees that each bear 40 different varieties of stone fruits, or fruits with pits. Van Aken says it’s both a work of art and a time line of the varieties’ blossoming and fruiting. He’s created more than a dozen of the trees that have been planted at sites such as museums around the U.S., which he sees as a way to spread diversity on a small scale.