When the University of Sydney’s talismanic jacaranda tree noped out of the Earth late last month, bereaved students lay floral tributes to the quadrangle’s purple icon.
The @Sydney_Uni Jacaranda. Dead this morning, gone this afternoon: pic.twitter.com/W6c9nF2YXB
— Honi Soit (@honi_soit) October 29, 2016
It may have been better for them to hold off, ’cause the tree will actually be replaced – with itself.
The University announced a cutting taken in 2014 has been cultivated into a fully-fledged tree that’ll replace its felled progenitor by April 2017.
Read: they’re pulling a Groot with one of two back-up “clones.”
As if that’s not already the best arboreal news you’ve heard all day, the uni has also flagged plans to install another you-beaut tree on-campus, and they’re keen to source one from a lil’ closer to home.
Dr Michael Spence, the uni’s vice-chancellor, said “we are built on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation… so as we replant the jacaranda, we are also committed to replanting a local tree in an iconic location.”
Front-runners currently include a ‘Strayan flame tree or a yellowbox tree. It’s also reported there have been suggestions the Uni install a species that blooms earlier in the year, playing off superstitions that students who begin exam studies after the jacaranda blooms are doomed to fail.
Here we are, on a Friday afternoon, stoked about two new trees. Good one, USyd.
