Awesome Humans: Sam Van Aken and the Tree of 40 Fruit

If looking at this beautiful tree—just looking at all the different blooms there—doesn’t make you happy, you might want to check your pulse. From a purely visual perspective, this tree is stunning. Nature! Nature is gorgeous.

It turns out, though, that this isn’t exactly nature… this is the handiwork of contemporary artist Sam Van Aken, and this Tree of 40 Fruit is a grafted, hybridized fruit tree doing a whole bunch of amazing things. Obviously it’s beautiful; it’s also a way to preserve heirloom stone fruits no longer being commercially produced, and (perhaps best of all), the end result allows for one tree providing a variety of produce for months on end.

Learn more about Van Aken and his trees in this Epicurious interview. Right now there are 16 of his trees around the country, and the only thing that would make me love this project more…