I have always loved trees. I remember once, when I was about six  years old, bursting into tears and frantically hitting an older cousin (with my little hands only!) because he was stamping on a small sapling at the bottom of the garden. He told me he hated trees because they “made wind”! It was an early indication to me as to how utterly misinformed people can be.

There were several climbing trees in the garden where I grew up. A climbing child graduated from the very easy arbutus, to a Spanish chestnut with many side branches, to a beech tree that required considerable agility in order to reach the lowest branch. And finally a tall fir that was my refuge when I was angry at the world. But it was Beech that I loved, and in whose branches I spent many hours reading, feeling somehow closer to the birds and the freedom of the sky.

During the early 1960s when I spent so many months on my own in the Gombe National Park, my connectedness with trees intensified. Let me quote from Reason for Hope, for I cannot say it better: “I became intensely aware of the being-ness of trees. The feel of rough sun-warmed bark of an ancient forest giant, or the cool, smooth skin of a young and eager sapling, gave me a strange intuitive sense of the sap as it was sucked up by unseen roots and drawn up to the very tips of the branches, high overhead . . . In particular I loved to sit in the forest when it was raining and to hear the pattering of the drops on the leaves and feel utterly enclosed in a dim twilight world of greens and browns and soft gray air.”

With my friend Mike Fay, I met the trees of the Goualougo Triangle in central Congo, gazing up in awe at the thousand-year-old giants of that unlogged forest. And Mike also introduced me to the towering ancient redwoods of California. In those magic forests—and indeed, in all the forests I have been privileged to visit—I have felt deep sorrow for the fate of the hundreds of millions of tree-beings who have lost their lives to ax and saw.

The Native Americans, among others, know that each kind of tree has its own individual voice. When a particular species of tree becomes extinct, the distinctive murmuring of its leaves in the wind is lost forever. This is why I love to learn about trees saved from extinction.

Cooke’s Kokio (Kokia cookei)
This is one of those improbable, almost fantastical stories that brings a smile to my heart. The Cooke’s kokio was discovered in the 1860s at the west end of Moloka’i in Hawaii by Mr. R. Meyer—he found only three individuals. Several years later, when botanists searched for those trees and could not find even one, it was assumed that Cooke’s kokio was extinct. Then, in 1910, one living tree was located—in the same general area as that where the three individuals had been seen. Indeed, it may well have been the last survivor of the trio—and I choose here think of it as Grandfather Kokio! Five years later, another expedition found that this tree, although still living, was in very poor shape; three years later it died, and in 1918 Cooke’s kokio was officially listed as extinct in the wild.

However, the indomitable Grandfather Kokio, sick though it had been, had nevertheless managed to produce a few seeds before its death. And at least one of those precious seeds must have germinated, because twelve years later, in 1930, a young tree—offspring of Grandfather Kokio—was found near the site of the dead parent. It was taken to the Kauluwai residence on Moloka’i, where it took root and grew. It produced seeds—and more than 130 seedlings grew from those seeds. The future of Cooke’s kokio seemed assured.

Imagine the dismay of the botanists when, on searching the area subsequently, it appeared that not one of those seedlings survived. And then, in the late 1950s, around thirty years after the death of Grandfather Kokio, its one and only surviving offspring, the only representative of its species—the Kauluwai tree—died. This time, surely, Cooke’s kokio was finally extinct.

But there was something about Grandfather Kokio’s lineage. I can almost imagine the spirit of that original tree hanging around and breathing new life into dormant seeds. For, almost twenty years later, in 1970, one more single adult tree was found—at the Kauluwai residence! It seemed that a seedling had survived after all. And so, yet again, the Cooke’s kokio had risen, like Phoenix, from the ashes. But the story does not end there!

In 1978, that brave lone survivor (grandchild of old Grandfather Kokio) was caught in a fire. By an amazing stroke of good fortune, before the mostly charred remains of the tree had lost all life, someone removed a still-living branch. And this branch, this last link with an unbroken lineage that stretched back to the tree’s origins in the Hawaiian rain forest, was grafted onto a related species at the Waimea Arboretum on Oahu. And there, with expert care, the graft took and grew.

As time went on, more and more plants from that original graft were distributed all over Hawaii. They were grafted successfully and seemed to prosper. But—and it was a very big but—not one of them set seed. For almost a quarter of a century, those young trees grew without producing, among them, even one seed. Then a horticulturist in Oahu finally managed to get viable seeds from a grafted plant. The seeds grew, and one of the precious seedlings—great-grandchild of old Grandfather Kokia—was sent to the local Audubon Center, where for the first time in more than ninety years an individual Cooke’s kokio grew on its own roots! A cause for celebration, surely!

Alas, it was not strong, this miracle tree. How fortunate then that at this point, Dr. Nellie Sugii, a tissue culture expert at the CPC institution, entered the picture. She was determined to succeed with this extraordinary plant, given its history of survival and tenacity. She worked with tender embryonic plants grown from seeds, trying to find a way to get more vigorous seedlings. It is because of her painstaking (and ongoing) efforts and dedication that Cooke’s kokio can, at long last, produce viable seeds that will grow into strong healthy individuals—the great-great-grandchildren of Grandfather Kokio.

The goal now is to begin reintroducing this extraordinary tree into its original home in the Hawaiian forests.

Toromiro (Sophora toromiro): National Tree of Easter Island
The rescue of the toromiro tree is particularly dramatic, since it was utterly exterminated in the wild. It is a small, feathery-branched tree with bright yellow bell-shaped flowers, and was once common on Easter Island where its wood was valued for building and especially for canoes and carvings. There were several reasons for its decline. Recently, it was discovered that the Polynesian rat arrived on the island along with the first human settlers, sometime between the tenth and twelfth centuries. The rats multiplied and were, it seems, instrumental in the decline of the endemic wine palm that had provided the shade necessary for the growth of young toromiro saplings. And then, of course, the Europeans arrived with their livestock, which so degraded the landscape that seedlings were unable to grow at all. The last known individual of this splendid tree living in the wild is thought to have been cut down for firewood in 1960. As it fell, it signaled the extinction of toromiro in the wild.

Fortunately, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (famous for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947) had collected some seeds from that lone survivor before it died. He had taken them back to Europe, where a few germinated. Initial work on propagation of this species was carried out by Gothenburg Botanic Gardens.

And today Kew’s horticulturists are working to conserve the genetic diversity of the few existing Toromiro individuals, descendents of the Sophora toromiro that once grew on Easter Island.

It was a strange feeling to see the little saplings growing at Kew, thinking how close the tree came to vanishing with no trace save the rotting wood in some fragment of Polynesian canoe. And how exciting it will be when the first individuals are returned to their ancestral home on Easter Island.

Cabbage Tree (Dendroseris litoralis)
At one time, this exotic tree with sword-like leaves and creamy white flowers grew plentifully on Juan Fernandez Island in the Chilean protectorate. In the eighteenth century, one Alexander Selkirk was marooned there; it is said that he used the leaves of the cabbage tree to supplement his diet. As Selkirk was Defoe’s inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, the island is often referred to as Robinson Crusoe’s Island.

When a survey was made, only three individuals could be found on the island. Fortunately, these few remaining trees produced seeds, which were collected and sent to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place. In 2000, ten healthy seedlings were raised in the nursery; four years later one of them flowered and produced viable seeds. Now the species was on the road to recovery.

When I visited Kew, I was shown the cuttings that are being grown there as part of a conservation focused display. And Robinson Crusoe’s Island has been designated as a national park and also a biosphere reserve. Work is under way to save not only the cabbage tree but other native plants as well.

St. Helena Ebony (Trochetiopsis ebenus)
This evergreen perennial, known locally as redwood, once grew to heights of up to fifteen feet, and was the dominant forest tree on St. Helena Island. This is an isolated island in the South Atlantic Ocean best known in Europe as the place to which Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled in 1815 and where he died five years later. At one time, the St. Helena ebony was a valuable endemic tree; the settlers used its wood for timber and its bark for tannin But as early as 1718, the relentless exploitation of the forest for timber, the clearance for agriculture, and the overgrazing by introduced herbivores combined to bring this endemic ebony to the very brink of extinction.

When a tree known as the Peak Gut tree (from the location where it grew) died in the early 1960s, it was thought that the St. Helena ebony was then extinct in the wild. Before it died, however, some of its seeds had previously been collected—in the late 1950s—and planted in gardens on the island. But although about sixty of these garden grown individuals still survive, they are not doing well: This ebony is a self-pollinating species, and there is a high level of inbreeding.

There was much excitement when, in 1980, about twenty years after the St. Helena ebony was listed as extinct in the wild, two “shrubby” specimens, with horizontal-growing branches and small white flowers, were spotted clinging to a remote rock face. A volunteer was lowered down the cliff and managed to collect a few cuttings, which were sent away to botanical gardens, including Kew, where they have grown successfully.

But something has changed. I wanted to see the St. Helena’s ebony when I visited Kew and I was puzzled when Nick showed me a collection of small shrubs covered in white flowers (which are apparently produced almost year-round). “I thought St. Helena’s ebony was a tree?” I said to Nick. He explained that, probably because of inbreeding, this ebony today grows no higher than six feet. Looking at these shrubs, I found it almost impossible to imagine them as trees dominating their island forest.

But perhaps, one day, it will be different. Scientists from Kew have recruited islanders, who are now working with them to develop methods for propagating and reintroducing this and other endangered and threatened local plants to St. Helena’s Island, including some that are extinct in the wild. Perhaps as the forest regenerates, the St. Helena’s ebony will fight its way up through the canopy until, once again, it regains its original height. Nothing about plants surprises me anymore.