or at least it’s seeds and scion are. Yay!,
When the tree came down, local horticulturist Rachel Ryver sprang into action - climbing over the damaged tree and wall to collect what is called scion - young twigs with buds. This was vital raw material for grafting genetic copies of the tree.
"It was drying out fast - we had to save whatever we could. Hours later I was standing at Hexham post office thinking "nobody knows I'm carrying what's left of the Sycamore Gap tree"," Rachel says.
The five bags of twigs, seeds and a few leaves arrived in Devon at 09:30 the next day.
Chris Trimmer was waiting. He has worked with plants since he was 12 - decades later, he is one of the UK's leading horticulturists.
For him, like many across the country, the story is personal. The first film he went to see with his now-wife was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves - its scene of Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman at Hadrian's Wall catapulted the tree to global fame.
Chris is softly-spoken, talking scientifically about the process. "It's our job to graft this stuff," he says.
He unpacked the bags, ran tests to check the material was free of disease, then bleached it for five minutes.
It was quite a moment. "If one had shown disease, it all would have been destroyed," he says.
www.bbc.com
When the tree came down, local horticulturist Rachel Ryver sprang into action - climbing over the damaged tree and wall to collect what is called scion - young twigs with buds. This was vital raw material for grafting genetic copies of the tree.
"It was drying out fast - we had to save whatever we could. Hours later I was standing at Hexham post office thinking "nobody knows I'm carrying what's left of the Sycamore Gap tree"," Rachel says.
The five bags of twigs, seeds and a few leaves arrived in Devon at 09:30 the next day.
Chris Trimmer was waiting. He has worked with plants since he was 12 - decades later, he is one of the UK's leading horticulturists.
For him, like many across the country, the story is personal. The first film he went to see with his now-wife was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves - its scene of Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman at Hadrian's Wall catapulted the tree to global fame.
Chris is softly-spoken, talking scientifically about the process. "It's our job to graft this stuff," he says.
He unpacked the bags, ran tests to check the material was free of disease, then bleached it for five minutes.
It was quite a moment. "If one had shown disease, it all would have been destroyed," he says.
Sycamore Gap: New life springs from rescued tree
BBC News is shown the secret site protecting the remains of the Sycamore Gap tree felled last year.
www.bbc.com
