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It may sound something straight out of a fairy tale, but this tree can bear 40 varieties of stone fruits including nectarines, peaches, and apricots.
Dubbed as the “tree of 40 fruit,” the enchanted-looking tree is the brainchild of Sam Van Aken, an artist and a professor at Syracuse University. Using “chip grafting,” an old technique which involves grafting buds from different antique and native fruit trees onto the branches of a base tree, the tree was able to produce unique hybrids.
Initially, Van Aken started it as an art project. But after learning that hundreds of stone fruits were not available in stores due to their color, size, or short shelf life, the project evolved and took on more goals. Van Aken thought of preserving these varieties by grafting them to the tree of 40 fruit.
“In this way they become an archive of the agricultural history of where they are located as well as a means to preserve antique and native varieties,” Van Aken told Epicurious.
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