Politics & Government
Arborists Cloning John Muir’s Giant Sequoia
Muir's tree, planted some 130 years ago, is slowing being killed by a fungus.
Written by Beatrice Karnes
If you’ve visited the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez you’re familiar with Muir’s giant sequoia, planted by the famed naturalist in the 1880s.
That tree is now doomed—infected by a fungus that can’t be stopped. But rather than have a piece of Muir’s legacy vanish, arborists are hoping that it will live on by cloning it.
Keith Park climbed 30 feet up the tree to get the cuttings for cloning. "It is a visible, tangible, living link to the past — Muir and his life and his stories," Park told the Monterey County Herald.
Park’s cuttings have been diced into 700 tiny cuttings that are incubated in a domed capsule. The cuttings are babied with just the right light, water, misting and rooting hormones. The cuttings’ baby nurse is arborist David Milarch, "It's nerve-racking. They are real finicky," he said. "We're trying to create the exact scenario of where they love to grow.
The original tree was just a seedling when Muir dug it up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, likely during a trip to Yosemite in 1884. Milarch calls the cuttings "living witnesses to John Muir's life — a man who preserved millions and millions of acres from development, so future generations could enjoy nature."
The John Muir National Historic Site is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am-5pm. The address is 4202 Alhambra Ave., Martinez.
