Dear Editor:
Last year there was an outcry before, during, and after the destruction of most Sycamore trees in Union City’s cool, shady, leafy Washington Park. Done mostly in spirit of support of the Washington Park Association’s leadership who had notified the public via local press that these trees were “historic” and because the scale of destruction of healthy big, reproducing trees. I want to inform our interested residents that I rushed to collect many of the fallen seed balls from these trees in order to save their DNA. Given the right humidity and temperature, sycamore seeds can germinate up to 5 years.
The Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation of Virginia Tech was able to use a cutting from a historic sycamore tree on campus in 2010 and root it in 2013. I was not able to get a cutting from Washington Park once the park was fenced off. My plan now is to conduct a germination test of some sycamore seeds then grow hundreds of seeds to seedlings. As far as I know this is the first creative effort of its kind in Union City by a conservation-minded resident. So it’s an experiment aimed at perpetuating life. All of our healthy and historic 80-100 year old Washington Park Sycamores have been destroyed but I hope that their seeds will thrive, grow, and yield new trees with their unique DNA just like the parent stock. .
Dedicated to preserving trees,
Antony Squire