NYC decides to clone 'historical' trees

NYC decides to clone 'historical' trees
1/10/08

NEW YORK - Squat, homely, dwarfed by the stately oaks and poplars nearby and unnoticed by the tourists passing in horse-drawn carriages, it's a tree that only birds and nut-hungry squirrels could love.
But on Thursday, the 100-year-old European beech on Central Park's Cherry Hill was the center of attention chosen by city officials as the first of 25 "historical" trees to be cloned as part of a plan to add a million new trees to streets, parks and public spaces over the next decade.
Agriculture students from a Queens high school rode hydraulic-powered tree-trimmers' buckets to upper branches of the 60-foot tree and snipped off 6- to 12-inch sections of new growth, to be sent to a scientific tree nursery in eastern Oregon. If all goes well, the genetic-match saplings will be back in two years, to be replanted as part of the "Million Trees NYC" project, announced last year.
"We want to break the stereotype of New York as skyscrapers and sidewalks," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benape said. "New York abounds in historical trees."
The target trees, five in each of New York's five boroughs, include nine different species. All were selected by borough foresters as historical for having existed for at least a century either as fixtures of the urban landscape or as having special significance to local communities.
Among those are what may be the city's oldest tree, the St. Nicholas elm also known as "the dinosaur" in upper Manhattan, which George Washington is said to have walked under during the American Revolution, 230 years ago.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080110/ap_on_sc/cloning_trees;_ylt=A0WTcUE6rYZHzswAXiGs0NUE

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