This may sound really silly, but could the Sycamore Gap tree be glued back on and still function?

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PassDazzling@reddit

I hope those responsible are made to pay for and physically replant a number of trees in this area as punishment for their crime.

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24Barretto24@reddit

They were jailed for 4 years for vandalism, criminal damage, violating National Trust rules and damage to Hadrian's Wall.

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bornleverpuller85@reddit

No, soon as xylem at broke the negative pressure is fucked

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Heinrick_Veston@reddit

It is possible that the stump could grow new shoots and over many years the could regrow and recover, but we’re talking decades of growth and it would never be quite the same tree.

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24Barretto24@reddit

[https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/sycamore-gap-is-sprouting/](https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/sycamore-gap-is-sprouting/) it already is.

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nanoDeep@reddit

It's very possible, sycamores are hard to kill.

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Barnagain@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the clarification mate.

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I will explain the original answer as sinoly as possible. This is a simplification but trees basically get water from the roots up to the leaves using suction. As water evaporates out the leaves it creates negative pressure, like sucking a straw. The leaves are connected to vessels that are in turn connected to the roots. As soon as these vessels are exposed to the air, air is sucked into them and this destroys the ability of these vessels to transport water as the air effectively acts as a blockage. In reality though, the real and most simple answer is, how's the water from the vessels below the cut gonna get through the glue to the vessels above?

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Barnagain@reddit (OP)

That's why I specified only gluing the outer ring of bark, so that the inner parts could reconnect and still suck up water and nutrients, although it would probably need some supports for the trunk too. I was just interested in the science behind it and whether it was possible. I now realise that the first part of my question was the only true part.

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frankleystein@reddit

The functional xylem in a sycamore would only be in the outer couple of rings, the inner wood would be dysfunctional static mass, there's also the strength consideration that comes with only having the bark glued together.

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Gedadahear@reddit

What about grafting it back on? Or a few smaller branches to speed up the regrowth

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frankleystein@reddit

The thing with grafting is that you're usually doing it with very young trees that are made of 100% functional tissue and can quickly form the attachment. An old tree like this contains loads of static mass, vessel tissue that is no longer active. The trees ability to graft together would be nothing like that of a young tree, especially near the base.

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24Barretto24@reddit

It was cut up and stored with The National Trust so no. But it is sprouting from the base - [https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/sycamore-gap-is-sprouting/](https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/sycamore-gap-is-sprouting/) Experts reckon between 150-200 years to get it back resembling what we once had...

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theabominablewonder@reddit

Looked into this yesterday after getting downvoted for the same question. Trees seal off any wounds and then you're unable to reattach as water can't pass through. You can sometimes re-attach branches though. If I were mayor I'd reattach it anyway.

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LeeGamerUK@reddit

Was just on the news about the saplings being planted over the uk! Sorry for the reopening thus after 2 years but I wanted to pop my idea… I know whatever idea I have will already have been thought about as not viable but, to use that phrase from Jurassic park about life finding a way… maybe trying anything would be better than not trying at all. Anyway, I always thought that in mature trees, the inner core of the trunk is just support and so could they have driven metal rods in to the stump and trunk to reconnect the bottom layers and shave a bit off each end to encourage growth! Tree could have been monitored to ensure it was not dying / dangerous. But at the end of the day I guess the cost and high failure risk meant there was only going to be one outcome! My tree biology is also very much terrible! I never thought I’d get so upset over a tree over never been to, but perhaps that in itself makes it so sad.

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Blackintosh@reddit

I'm so so pissed off at this 😭never though I'd be this upset over a tree. My wife and I walked up to the tree just after the "Beast from the East" snow storm a few years back and it is one of my absolute most precious memories we have together. Jumping off Hadrians wall into 7 feet deep snow drifts. Rolling down the hill next to the Sycamore tree (we had no idea how brutally rocky it was under the snow 😂) And my wife sculpted a solider of the Snoman Empire - https://imgur.com/a/1iBwGGI

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Fluid-Background1947@reddit

I read that as Snottoman Empire

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

Wow, that's really good! I thought it was going to just be a regular crappy snowman with a stick for a sword or something, but that's a proper snow sculpture.

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DrSholaISAvileCUNT@reddit

🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽

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CutOriginal5355@reddit

Superficially this is only a tree but I know a couple who took wedding photos here, photos with their children and sadly he also scattered the ashes of his wife and one of his children here. I cannot believe the perpetrator really considered the consequences of his actions.

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bonkerz1888@reddit

Chop your arm off and try glue it back together.

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watsee@reddit

Misread instructions, now have an arm stuck on my back.

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Brave-Surprise5479@reddit

OK, now what..

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vientianna@reddit

No, but they were saying on the news tonight that they hope it might regrow from the stump

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trojan10_om@reddit

I found the positivity in that comment on the news so strange. ‘Guys we’ve had £1m stolen, but not to worry they’ve left behind £10k. We’ll invest that and in a couple of decades we’ll be happy with about 200k.”

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Barnagain@reddit (OP)

But that would take 300 years...

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cuccir@reddit

Sycamore trees actually grow relatively quickly. They can get to full size in 10-20 years.

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Barnagain@reddit (OP)

I was only going by what I read and that said it was 300 years old. I realise they could grow to relative maturity in 20 years or so, but to reach 300 years of maturity would still take 300 years, would it not?

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DanceFeeling4642@reddit

Yes, it was 300 years old, but like u/cuccir said, they can still grow to near full size in 20 years. My nan is 95 and hasn't grown much since before WW2....

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frankleystein@reddit

Sycamores grow fast, but there is absolutely no scenario in which they reach their mature size in 20 years. You will have a supermarket car park tree size in 20 years or if you're lucky and you plant a select standard tree and look after it, maybe an early mature tree that's getting close to the maximum height but nowhere near the stem diameter and crown spread. With regrowth from a stump growing in an exposed upland setting with presumably shit soil we won't have anything more than a Bush in most of our life times.

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irving_braxiatel@reddit

If anything, she’s shrunk since then.

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LaidBackLeopard@reddit

I think older trees are less likely to coppice; not sure about sycamore specifically. But if it does, it's got a huge root structure to feed it, so it'll come up faster than a sapling.

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Skorpychan@reddit

I forgot coppicing was a thing.

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drifter129@reddit

My equally uneducated idea was can they find a similar tree elsewhere dig it out and move it.. like with shrubs.

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frankleystein@reddit

This is way more feasible, and the equipment exists to do, but its eye wateringly expensive, would be complicated a lot by the setting and the prospects of survival of a tree of that age being transplanted are poor. Also the original tree would have been very well adapted for its exposed location. For a 300 year old sycamore, its quite compact and I bet if you look at the rings, which sadly you know could, they are very close together, as the tree has been growing in very slow increments making it rock solid compared to normal sycamores. I was doing some resistance drill tests on some trees on an exposed mountain side recently, a similar age, and the strength of some of the wood was literally off the scale.

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2xw@reddit

And you'd have the whole complication of it having grown on/in and with the roots probably through a historic monument, with all the archaeology that entails

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2cimage@reddit

Or replace it with a carbon copy tree sculpture in memorial to the original.

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

There is a group in South America, fighting against the logging companies causing deforestation in the Amazon by evo-sticking all the trees back up at night time while the workers are asleep, so it is possible.

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Barnagain@reddit (OP)

With an Evo-Stik?? Those things couldn't even hold paper together when I was a kid!

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

Apparently they use this https://www.toolstation.com/evo-stik-contact-adhesive/p95550 Cover both surfaces, wait until it's touch dry then stick, it's the strongest glue for trees allegedly.

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Er1nf0rd61@reddit

That stuff is for gluing? Wow. TIL. I thought it was just for hufflepuffing

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

The smell reminds me of Margate graveyard in the 80s

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Brave-Surprise5479@reddit

That's because it's made from corpses

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criminal_cabbage@reddit

I would have thought wood glue wood be be best

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

Yes, Those silly south americans probably should have thought of that when I originally made this bollocks up.

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criminal_cabbage@reddit

So glad you got my joke! Haha!

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

:)

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criminal_cabbage@reddit

Didn't even recognise my wood joke. Sigh

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

DOH, sorry! hey delete your second post and I'll edit my one to make it look like I did.

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criminal_cabbage@reddit

😏

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Scav_Construction@reddit

I use this product at work I don't believe there is enough strength to hold up a tree with it

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No-Pair-8344@reddit

You're obviously not using it correctly, you can contact the group at amazonrainforresttreestickers@amazongroup.com and ask them for advice if needed or for further information on their plight.

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KiwiLiverpool@reddit

Either they have to see if the stump can regrow, remove the roots and plant a new tree or try to transport one similarly sized tree and see if it takes.

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wait_whut_@reddit

Hack the little cunt that did it off at the ankles and see which grows back first.

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Strict-Swimming-1211@reddit

Yeh mate get the PVA out

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blackthornjohn@reddit

Yes, on much smaller (very much smaller indeed) scale, it's called grafing, it's more complicated than your way but does work, unfortunately the laws of physics are against us at sycamore gap.

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