Spruception
No One:
Xzibit: YO DAWG, WE HEARD YOU LIKED DWARF ALBERTA SPRUCE
lol 2002 called it wants its meme back
I am laughing too much here
DH says that it should be named Spruce Banner.
Sounds like it would end up as some sort of Dr. Seuss looking tree
I will not stop making this comment on every one of these posts. 😅
Hinoki cypress ass tree
Bro he’s definitely gotta do this. This is the only way.
This comment makes me feel like if I ever spent any time learning propagation I would turn into a Dr Frankenstein
Here’s a podcast where grafting-and-human-selection Horticulture Dr. Frankenstein was one of the hippest guys that the celebs and elite of the time wanted to go bar hopping with. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gastropod/id918896288?i=1000654080843
The inability for him to patent plumcots and russet potatoes led to changing patent law around biologicals and paved the way to Monsanto.
I can't read this. I don't understand what's going on. Not in the pic, not in your advice.
So the original tree is a clone. A single Alberta spruce tree (which looks like a giant normal forest conifer) grew as a dwarf version like this and someone cloned it. Over and over and over again. By grafting. This variety has a tendency to revert to the standard version of itself in a branch and that’s what the photo looks like.
If allowed to grow the branch will get big. And then you could graft a cutting from the dwarf version to the top and make a Dr Seuss tree of sorts out of it.
Like, cutting someone's arm and putting it on that same person's head?
More like cutting off someone’s foot and replacing one of their hands with it.
Ty, mine is like this and I never knew why.
DO IT!
It’s called witches’ broom. A proliferation of shoots growing together. It can be caused by genetic mutation, virus or fungus. There are broom hunters that collect witches’ brooms to develop dwarf plants. You may call a nursery to find out if they collect witches’ brooms.
Hell's bells that's a good idea!
😦 I thought me and my friend were the only ones to say this lol
Hell's bells?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Dwarf Alberta spruce reverting to a regular white spruce
Just let it be and watch it grow!
Which is which?
That’s an Alberta Spruce which is a hybrid and the growth on top is reversion to the species from which it derived. Genetic reversion.
If this is too pedantic, please ignore, but technically dwarf alberta was a genetic variant. It was probably originally found in a witches broom, which is a weird growth on trees where one bud randomly develops as a variant of the mother plant.
So this photo is SORT of a reverse witch's broom where via random chance a single bud came back without the dwarf genetic variation.
Yes! It’s pretty cool to think that they are all from the exact same plant, found by one person back in the day somewhere
Yeah it's wild. Probably a single cell was copying its DNA when dividing and it accidentally did a .5 times on a certain hormone and now it's a basically an entirely new plant.
It’s a little bit like that one lady’s cancer cells they use in petri dishes and stuff, except it’s not creepy and disgusting
Ugh. Do they still use them?!
Yeah. Henrietta Lacks. HeLa cells are used every single day all around the world
Wow. Last I heard the family was pursuing compensation and recognition. I hope they got it
Yeah I’m not sure about that part, but the cells are definitely used constantly https://www.nature.com/articles/501167d
Really interesting, thanks.
I know! Thank you too, I’m glad we talked about this, I’m high af
I didn't know HeLa calls existed before today, but John Hopkins has a link specifically about her legacy here
Nice! Thanks!
I think its most likely due to a bad graft than a witches broom but i definitely could be wrong, im only at my first year of horticulture school
The point is that Dwarf Alberta Spruce as a cultivar was selected from a witch's broom, not that the tree in OP's picture has a witch's broom.
DAS is well-known for being prone to reversion like this, likely due to the mutation that causes its dwarf habit being epigenetic in nature. DAS is also generally propagated via rooted cuttings, not grafts.
Also thank you for being kind and explaining this respectfully its rare on this app nowadays. I always love learning new stuff
So i have a question, i thought witches broom was a reaction to certain diseases, is it also more a mutation that isn’t related to an infection? Really interesting stuff!
A witch's broom is any clump of abnormally dense growth. They're often caused by viruses, bacteria, insects, or other pests and diseases, but they can just be caused by a somatic mutation (a mutation that occurs in one of the meristems of a living plant, rather than during the process of sexual reproduction, so it only affects the plant from where the mutation occurred and outward).
You may know more than me in school, but I wouldn’t suspect that because the graft happens like 3 inches above the soil line and this reversion to non-dwarf foliage is way at the top of the tree.
I imagine a large dwarf Alberta puts out 4K new buds each year, and it only takes one to revert.
Although sometimes people do graft trees way higher than 3 inches it’s possible and sometimes it creates a big protuberance where the graft was,
My teacher showed us a tree that was purposely sold grafted on half of a certain type of conifer the other half was a blueish conifer and it was grafted that way, it was pretty weird although i know its not likely that in this case thats what it is. You may actually be right now that im thinking about it
That reminds me of the guy who had one tree but grafted dozens of different fruits on it.
How did that work out?
Well, it's pretty common
Dozens? I didn't realise that was common.
Idk about dozens on one tree but the technique is hundreds of years old. It's not uncommon to have multiple fruits on one tree
Idk about dozens especially because in my climate these a limited amount of fruits we can grow (its cold) but yeah its true you can graft a lot of different fruits to one tree as long as they are compatible together (like you wont graft a coconut tree and an apple tree i dont think that would work )
Van Aken's Tree of 40 Fruit, an invention that's just what it sounds like, is capable of producing 40 different varieties of fruit—plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines, cherries and others.
Yeah saw that on tiktok they called it a salad fruit tree my teacher calls these "abominations” lol its insane how humans are able to play with nature like that
That answers a question a I had too, when I was on a trip from WA to BC last year and we saw almost a whole line of trees that were doing the same thing.
Coolest thing I’ve heard today
REJECT MODERNITY EMBRACE TRADITION
Cut off the top, people pay extra for the alberta spruce, this happens to older ones as others have commented.
Reversion. Good, now it will turn into a real tree.
Is this commonly called a “sport”?
More commonly it's "reversion"; if you do an image search for tree reversion you get wads of pictures of OP's tree.
A sport is a generic term for any portion of a plant that's different from the rest, so a reversion like this is a specific type of sport
Looks like a. Muppet or something kind of tree, super endearing and cool tree. I would stick some giant googly eyes on it, that would be perfection.
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Short boï
Nature seekers it’s own balance
Spruce said:
Nature is healing
Human return to monke.
Tree return to busch.
Wildtype reversion
Have this exact same growth happening to mine, it's probably about 40 years old.
If you want to keep the dwarfed portion you should remove the reversion, otherwise it will just grow into a full-size white spruce
Is that poison ivy growing next to it?
More likely Acer Negundo aka Boxelder
Super common. DAS reverting to regular growth habit. Aka sideshow bob
Momma spruce creeping by the wood pile, shaking her boughs like it was natural, and oops she’s got some ’splainin to do.
I like it's new hair
Nature finds a way.
Can you say Reversion not good! Root stock is showing through the graft!
Interspecies anal sex. Happens every time
I am so glad you asked this. My neighbour has a tree that looks just like this - now we know!
Too many Cheetos
Your tree joined a punk band.
OH BOY, HAVE I GOT A LINK FOR YOU TO ACCOMPANY ALL OF THESE CORRECT ANSWERS!! 😃
Chimera
Topped
Omg I have one like this too! Thanks for identifying it. I never knew.
Spruceptuon
I love his little hat
Please paint it purple and put Grimaces face on it from McDonalds
Please paint it purple
And put Grimaces face on
It from McDonalds
- chasing_contentment
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Well, when one tree loves another tree….
In botany, a sport or bud sport, traditionally called lusus, is a part of a plant that shows morphological differences from the rest of the plant. Sports may differ by foliage shape or color, flowers, fruit, or branch structure. The cause is generally thought to be a chance genetic mutation.
When two trees have sex they make this monstrosity
I have one in my backyard doing the same thing.
Tree grow funny
Your idyllicly whimsical neighbours have dedicated theirs life work to trimming that tree to give it a crown! /s
looks like the landscaper bro forgot to bring a ladder.
DO IT NOW
This is a dwarf cultivar reverting back to normal due to genetic instablility. Most dwarf conifer cultivars are taken from chimeras, which are genetically distinct "mutant" branches on an otherwise normal plant. Breeders will take cuttings of these wicked sections of growth as they look great, but they will almost always revert back with enough time.
Its called Reversion. The dwarf Alberta spruce is a genetically mutated version of a white spruce. It’s common to see these with sections that mutate back into its original species.
Is the Pine the host?
That’s as far as the Gardner can reach with the hedge trimmers and they don’t own a ladder…..
It is a transspruce.
It is a trans spruce.
Issa tree, tree things
That is where a lazy person couldn’t reach all the way to the top and didn’t care enough to get a ladder.
My neighbor has one that did the same thing
This happened probably because the tree was grafted (like most urban trees are) and its reverting
Dwarf Alberta Spruce is generally propagated via rooted cuttings, not grafts, and it's well-known for being a fairly unstable mutation. Also, if it were a graft issue where the rootstock was sending out new growth it would be coming from the bottom, not the top.
Fair enough! Cant argue with ya on this i didnt have my class on trees yet, ill have it next semester! All i know is that my teacher told me most if not all trees are grafted in order to speed up growth and make them look nicer. Maybe that only applies to deciduous or leafy trees and not coniferous ones! You have teached me something new friend
Trees are grafted because cultivars are propagated clonally in order to maintain the exact genetics that the cultivar was selected for, and grafting is the most convenient way to do that for many species. It can provide some "faster growth" for slow-growing weeping cultivars, in that you can graft them onto a fairly tall rootstock (called a 'standard') to get a plant of the heigh you want without having to wait for it to grow itself, and without having to deal with training a vertical stem of the weeping cultivar, but the grafting itself doesn't actually change the growth rate or appearance of the tree. In fact, grafting is much more often used to reduce growth, as in the case of cultivar dwarfing rootstocks for fruit trees.
For many species or individual cultivars, though, cuttings root well and easily, and when possible that's preferred, as a graft union is always a weak point in a tree.
They often graft the bottom bit for the roots of a certain specie and the top Of another tree but sometimes if poorly done they will revert
Someone used to trim it and now doesn't
Dude trimming ran out of ladder..
12 missing replies
You need to isolate this single branch that has reverted and let it grow a bit and then graft the dwarf part back on so you can have a dwarf Alberta spruce on an Alberta spruce on a dwarf Alberta spruce. DO IT.