Stumpy’s Last Stand

Few trees become internet darlings. Yet Stumpy, a Yoshino cherry on the edge of the capital’s Tidal Basin, was no common ornamental.

The tree never would have won awards for the tallest or the fullest of the National Mall’s flowering icons. It was, in fact, mostly hollow and downright spindly, thanks to routine flooding. But Stumpy’s plucky resolve — and annual shock of pink blossoms — captured hearts at the height of the pandemic, catapulting this unlikely hero into the public eye. If it could survive, even flower, against all odds, so could the rest of us.

Before long, adoring fans were clamoring for Stumpy selfies and slapping its scrappy visage onto T-shirts, calendars and other swag. Organizers of a D.C.-area race even selected the beleaguered hardwood to be its event mascot (and, yes, this involved a life-size costume). “It’s not about the height of the tree,” the race website pontificated, “it’s about the depth of its roots.”

This spring, when the National Park Service announced its intentions to remove Stumpy — along with more than 150 of its cherry tree neighbors — as part of a massive $113-million Great American Outdoors Act project to restore the sinking seawalls of the basin and nearby West Potomac Park, tree huggers everywhere banded together to defend and eulogize their besieged friend. A Reddit thread included pleas to sign a save-Stumpy petition, calls for holding a wake and proffers of shovels for a midnight raid to “free” the specimen. The Park Service quickly went on record to say that the tree had been in a “mortality spiral” for years and that transplanting was not an option. That fact didn’t stop the public displays of grief.

[Winter 2025] Stumpy - cuttings

Stumpy clones grow in a greenhouse at the U.S. National Arboretum. If all goes well, they could be replanted along the Tidal Basin in two to three years.

COURTESY OF U.S. NATIONAL ARBORETUM

In the weeks leading up to its date with a chainsaw, Stumpy was lavished with letters and flowers and serenaded by a trumpeter from the National Symphony Orchestra. “The Drew Barrymore Show” covered what it called “Stumpy mania,” as did The Washington Post, which splashed word of the tree’s demise across the front page of its Metro section. When a Post meteorologist documented the tree’s last day on X (formerly Twitter) with a series of images and the tagline “RIP Stumpy,” his post received nearly 69,000 views.

All is not lost, however. Cuttings from the beloved tree are now growing at the U.S. National Arboretum and could one day be returned to the restored Tidal Basin. By then, the three-year project to anchor and raise the seawalls, widen the sidewalks, and plant over 450 trees (more than half of which will be cherry) should be concluded. And the resurrected Stumpy — or at least its clones — will be able to delight its many admirers once again.