Asheville Botanical Gardens Moon Tree

Asheville, North Carolina

This sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) was planted at the Botanical Gardens at Asheville in North Carolina in a ceremony on Arbor Day, March 19, 1976. However, it appears the original may have been taken to a greenhouse and a different sycamore planted in its place at the ceremony, later replaced with the real Moon Tree.

The plaque reads:

Sycamore
Platanus occidentalis L.
This sycamore was planted from a seed which traveled on the January 31, 1971 Apollo 14 flight to the Moon. Command pilot Stuart Roosa is a former forest service smoke jumper. Commemorating the nation's bicentennial and forestry's centennial.
1976

Photographs courtesy of Becky Priddy

Botanical Gardens at Asheville

Along the Way: The Asheville Moon Tree

Moon Tree Home Page

NASA Official: Dave Williams, david.r.williams@nasa.gov
Last Updated: 26 February 2021, DRW