Newton's apple tree in Cambridge University garden was knocked down by storm

Newton's famous apple tree in the garden of Cambridge University, England was knocked down by Storm Eunice, but fortunately, scientists were able to clone two other trees.

In 1665, after graduating, Newton and his family went to his mansion in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England to avoid an outbreak of disease.

The tree has large, red-green fruits, but the taste is nothing special.

After watching an apple fall from a tree in the garden, Newton began to ponder the force that pulled the falling object straight toward the ground. That was the beginning of the law of universal gravitation, which he published in 1687.

This apple tree has a long history, being planted around 1650 but the tree was cut down during a hurricane in the 1800s.

Fortunately, scientists have cloned apple trees and sent them to several universities and research centers on every continent except Antarctica.

There's one in Los Angeles, another at the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and even an apple tree seed that was sent to the International Space Station in 2016.

One of the seeds sent to the botanical garden at the famous Cambridge University. In the garden inside the prestigious British university, scientists planted replicas of apple trees.

However, during the last great storm Eunice, the 'Flower of Kent' tree, a replica of Newton's famous apple tree, was felled.

Newton's apple tree in the Cambridge University garden was knocked down by a storm.

The "Flower of Kent" apple tree was planted in the Cambridge University Botanical Garden in 1954. The tree has large, red-green fruit, but has nothing special in taste, mainly used for cooking.

Samuel Brockington, curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, said the iconic tree had stood at the entrance to Brookside for the past 63 years and the loss this time is a sad event. He also shared that the Botanical Garden had three copies of the original plant, a process of their research and experimentation over the years.

A representative from Cambridge University's botanical gardens said they had recently noticed that the apple tree had a tendency to die down and strong winds had knocked it down.

"We have another replica, Newton's apple tree that will remain in the garden, but sadly not in a familiar location," the rep said.

Recently, scientists sequenced the tree's genome in the "Darwin Tree of Life" project. So the tree's DNA data is now kept forever.