There is no end to human ingenuity. This is evident in the ‘Tree of 40’ which is a labour of love and enterprise on part of Sam Van Aken as it bears not just fruits but a variety of them. You heard it right and what is amazing is that the variety of fruits numbers 40! Hence the name ‘Tree of 40’

Aken, a Syracuse University Professor, achieved this feat through plant grafting and seed hybridization. From the very beginning he was bitten by the bug of combining agriculture and art and so he began grafting seeds for an exhibition in Eden in 2008.

From then on the work continued and the ‘Tree of 40’ is a result of relentless experimentation.

Each tree as per Aken starts looking a bit strange in the beginning but later it simply looks any other. With the coming of spring, the tree blooms fully and yields different types of fruits.

The fruits could be peaches, plums, nectarines, almond, cherry and apricot varieties among others. So far Aken, according to reports, gifted 16 such trees to museums, gardens and art exhibitions.

Aken calls his method “sculpture through grafting” which helps and allows the tree to grow more than 40 varieties of stone fruits.

Aken, talking to Epicurious website, said he visualises such trees as a form of art which he intends to use to “interrupt and transform every day". This apart, with the rapid industrialisation affecting agriculture and leading to disappearance of food varieties, the “Tree of 40” can help preserve what he calls the “native, heirloom, antique and less commercially viable varieties" of fruits. Such fruits according to him are no longer cultivated or grown in the United States.