seedling

“This guy is kind of alive,” DeWees said, kneeling near a tiny ceanothus seedling.

The previous winter’s meager rainfall contributed to the seedling mortality, as did crowding by a medley of non-natives: mustard, red brome, wild oat and foxtail.

Still, if cooler conditions are supporting better seedling survival, those Joshua tree populations may still end up being healthier than those in places farther south, where flowering is increasing, Yoder said.

It’s the seedling of a vision the corps dreamt up just a few years ago.

King Charles has been given the first seedling grown from the Sycamore Gap tree after it was illegally felled.