Tree of 40 Fruit

Sam Van Aken, artistic rendering of a 'Tree of 40 Fruit.'

The BYU Museum of Art Sculpture Garden will soon welcome three of Sam Van Aken’s Trees of 40 Fruit. These three trees (apple, cherry, and a stone fruit variety) will begin with a handful of species on each of them with new types added annually through the process of grafting. Scheduled for planting in Spring 2027, each tree will eventually contain 40 different fruits of its kind. Although Trees of 40 Fruit appear as normal fruit trees during most of the year, in the spring they blossom in variegated tones of pink, white, and crimson. These coordinated blooms yield a multitude of fruit, harvestable throughout summertime.

Inspired by his own great-grandfather’s legacy of grafting, Sam Van Aken's botanical sculptures exist at the intersection of art and horticulture. In addition to their striking multicolor blooms, the trees are a living library of regional fruit varieties. Primarily composed of antique and native fruit types, the Tree of 40 Fruit is a form of conservation, preserving rare, unknown, or once forgotten cultivars that are not commercially available. Each branch, bud, and harvest are ripe with possibility, inviting interdisciplinary conversations on agricultural histories, food insecurity, environmental stewardship, and religious symbolism.

Request a Tour

Sam Van Aken

Sam Van Aken works beyond traditional modes of art making. By crossing artistic genres and disciplines, he seeks to develop new perspectives on communication, industrialization, botany, biodiversity, agriculture, climatology, and the ever-increasing impact of technology. Van Aken’s interventions in the natural and public realm are seen as metaphoric symbols, sites of place making, and, in some cases, catalysts for scientific research.

After planting dozens of Tree of 40 Fruit nationally and internationally, the artist was approached by the City of New York to work on The Open Orchard—a large-scale installation of 102 grafted heirloom apple trees on Governors Island. This ongoing public project highlights the scope of Van Aken’s intervention in the art world.

Use the map below to find where other Trees of Forty Fruit can be found across the United States (note: the varieties of fruit differ from one location to the next). The images highlight the trees throughout their many stages.

While Sam Van Aken has planted dozens of Trees of 40 Fruit, both nationally and internationally, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art is an especially fitting site.

With its commitment to “inspiring learning,” the University is highly ranked as one of the most beautiful campuses in the country due to its carefully tended grounds and variety of trees. As an institution affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU students, faculty, and the surrounding community are uniquely familiar with the process of grafting. The Book of Mormon, a sacred religious text associated with the faith, contains an extended allegory in which grafting is used as the central metaphor to describe the Lord’s care for His children and the gathering of the whole human family (see Jacob 5).

Although the artist did not create his Tree of 40 Fruit with this intent, he is delighted visitors to this specific site may find its context additionally meaningful and welcomes this expanded interpretation.

A symbolic number found throughout western religions and cultures, the number 40 can signify many things. In sacred narratives, the number 40 is often associated with a liminal period of wandering, deprivation, purification, fasting, testing, or preparation that precedes a time of renewal and prosperity. As a round number, it has also been used to convey notions of “completeness.” In number theory, 40 is considered an “abundant number” since the sum of its divisors (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, and 20) is greater than itself (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 10 + 20 = 50; 50 > 40). For the artist, the number 40 symbolizes the infinite, a bounty that is beyond calculation. Like the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, these trees are a potential; they are the beginning of a narrative that transforms the site they are located in.

Trees of 40 Fruit are developed using several grafting techniques, including whip grafting and bud grafting. By using a whip graft technique at the top of a branch and one or two bud grafts below it, each branch is able to produce multiple different fruit varieties.

In winter, 12-18" scions (detached living sections of a plant) are collected from different cultivars (types of fruit varieties) sourced from orchards in New York and the region where each tree has been planted. Scionwood is stored until spring when it is ready to be “topworked” into the host tree by grafting a short spliced or chipped section of the scionwood onto the branches. When successful, these new grafts heal to the original branch and produce new growth.

Each Tree of 40 Fruit undergoes an annual grafting process for the first five years until it produces 40 different fruit varieties.