Newton Apple Tree Clone

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

This tree on the grounds of the National Institute of Standards and Technology was planted in 2000 and is a direct descendant of the tree which supposedly inspired Isaac Newton's theories on gravity. That tree, growing for over 350 years at Woolsthorpe Manor in England, was used to cut off a portion that was then planted at this spot in 1957. Because this apple tree was propagated from a cutting rather than a seed, it is considered a clone of the original tree. The tree planted here in 1957 died around the turn of the twenty-first century, but the current tree at this spot was propagated from a cutting of its parent and so it, too, is a clone of Newton's tree.

Images

The first cloned tree at this spot, now dead. Courtesy of National Institute of Standards and Technology via Atlas Obscura (public domain)

Current Newton tree clone by Devry Becker Jones on HMDB.org (reproduced under Fair Use)

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The tree growing here is a clone of the apple tree which grew beside Isaac Newton's birthplace in Lincolnshire, England. According to legend, watching an apple falling from that tree in the 1660s inspired young Newton in his theory of gravity, which he published in Principia in 1687. The original tree still grows at Woolsthorpe Manor, despite falling over in several nineteenth-century storms.

Around the time of the tree's second fall, someone took cuttings of the tree, the only apple tree in the vicinity of the house. These cuttings grew in the kitchen garden of Belton House, owned by John Cust, the first earl of Brownlow. Sample cuttings eventually made their way to Kew Gardens and East Malling Research Station shortly before World War II. During the war, two trees from East Malling's collection made the dangerous Atlantic crossing to the United States, a trip most likely orchestrated by Clarence A. Reed of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. One tree was planted at Pennsbury Manor, William Penn's estate, and the other in Takoma Park, Maryland.

The National Bureau of Standards, which later became the National Institute of Standards and Technology, operated at this site from 1903 to 1968, before moving to Gaithersburg, Maryland. A researcher here, Irving Gardner, visited the National Physical Laboratory in the UK in the 1950s as part of his research into the gravitational constant. He saw that it had a Newton tree, and raised enthusiasm among his colleagues to plant a clone of the Newton tree at the NBS as well. After a brief search, the Takoma Park tree was located, and four grafts produced. The NBS planted one of them at this site on March 15, 1957.

This tree died eventually, but in April 2000 the NIST planted another clone, which grows at the site to this day. There has been some debate about whether the clones were "imposter trees" of other species. NIST maintains a secret grove of Newton trees on its Gaithersburg campus to give as gifts.

Sources

Carter, Elliot. NIST Newton Apple Tree, Atlas Obscura. Accessed September 17th 2020. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nist-newton-apple-tree.

Esser, Mark. The Tangled Tale of Newton's Apple Tree, Taking Measure: Just a Standard Blog. June 26th 2018. Accessed September 17th 2020. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/tangled-tale-nists-newton-apple-tree.

Jones, Devry Becker. Science Has Its Traditions As Well As Its Frontiers: The Newton Apple Tree, Historical Marker Database. March 22nd 2019. Accessed September 17th 2020. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=124922&Result=1.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nist-newton-apple-tree

https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=449852