Lord Noel asks "Is Tree Really a Crowd?"

Whatto! Peeps...

This hackneyed metal sculpture, may seem insignificant enough at first glance...
...but it comes at the end of a very long story...one lasting since the beginning of creation!
Fast forward to 1973... a drunk Libyan truck driver has an accident.  He is driving around in the Nigerien (as in Niger, not Nigeria) part of the Sahara Desert, as close as one gets to being in the middle of nowhere (see this map) when he hits a tree.  The driver isn't badly injured....but the tree is knocked down.

In almost all cases, a uprooting of a tree in this manner would be unfortunate, but hardly tragic.  But this was a special case.  The tree, called the Tree of Ténéré was the last tree around for 250 miles!

How it used to look

How did it get there?  The Sahara was not always as dry as it is today, and probably over a century ago (if not much longer), a group of trees grew where the Tree of Ténéré until recently grew.  Over time, given the extremely dry and isolated location of the trees, all the trees save one weathered away.  The final tree survived via a complex, deep-running root system which hit the water table a ridiculous 33-plus meters below ground level.  (In fact, a 130 foot deep well was built near the Tree of Ténéré as a man-made oasis in the middle of barren wasteland.)

The tree is now on display at the Niamey Museum (the national museum of Niger), having been moved there in November of 1973, just months after its demise.
And at its original location....
...is the sculpture you see above.

I wonder if all our trees will end up this way?

Tallyho!
Best Wishes - Lord Noel