TRACING THE FAMILY TREE OF TREES

THE Major Oak of Sherwood forest, the only visible relic of the Robin Hood mythos and a pilgrimage destination for millions, has been declared dead, leaving us to ponder the memory of trees.

- PRATIK KANJILAL

THE Major Oak of Sherwood forest, the only visible relic of the Robin Hood mythos and a pilgrimage destination for millions, has been declared dead, leaving us to ponder the memory of trees. The 1,200-year-old tree, whose massive trunk is believed to have concealed the bandit and his merry men at a sticky time, failed to produce foliage this spring. The Major Oak will fall one day, but its acorns have apparently been planted all over the world. Even a millennium after the prince of thieves lived and died—if he ever lived at all—his oak will keep his world alive.

No one knows if Robin had indeed hidden from the sheriff of Nottingham in that tree. And the tree’s offspring are growing far from home, their genealogy unauthenticated. But Robin’s legend does not rely on evidence, but on the compelling idea that he robbed the rich to give to the poor—a very early expression of the trickle-down effect, tweaked by the intervention of non-state actors. In an unfair, extractive world, the legend is powerful. But the oak? The authenticity of trees is a Ship of Theseus problem.

In popular culture, belief trumps facts. But trees are also heritage and religious objects. Is the Mahabodhi tree at Bodh Gaya authentic? The current avatar is not the tree beneath which Sakyamuni meditated. It was planted in 1881 by Alexander Cunningham, founder of the Archeological Survey of India. He used a cutting from the Jaya Shri Mahabodhi tree at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, which is the oldest verified human-planted tree.