Botanists stumped over 'cruelest cut of the Christmas season'
But it wasn't just any tree; the tree was so rare that the incident is being called "the cruelest cut of the Christmas season" by horticulturists.
Keteleeria Evelyniana will never make the list of the world's most beautiful trees. Not even a horticulturist would call the tree beautiful.
"A Charlie Brown tree, sort of," said David Zukerman, a horticulturist at the University of Washington Botanic Garden. "In our minds, it's priceless."
The tree's thin, long needles are sparse and from afar, a layperson may not be too impressed. But it is one-of-a-kind, and very, very rare.
There is now one standing Keteleeria left in Washington state, and perhaps in the Northwest.
Two Keteleerias used to stand proud at the arboretum until someone, perhaps on Tuesday night, came in with a bow saw and carted it away. And to Zukerman, the act is an unforgivable offense with irreparable damages.
"The tree's been cut. Even if we find the person who took the tree and the tree, it's a dead tree," he said.
If you think Zukerman is upset, think of Barbara Selemon. She took care of the trees for nine years until they were old enough to be planted in the arboretum.
"Someone stabbed me in the stomach," she said. "It's like feeling you have lost something very special to you."
Selemon's message to the tree cutter: "I think you're an idiot. Why would you ever feel the right to take a tree from a public park?"
At the arboretum, Zukerman wonders why anyone would cut down a Charlie Brown tree.
"If you walk over there, I can show you some very beautiful firs," he said, pointing to another part of the arboretum. Firs are not as rare, but of course, you can't cut down any trees at the arboretum.
The university is still trying to put a value on the stolen tree. Its first guess is $10,000. At the Rino Lot on Lake City Way, that's enough to buy all the trees -- some 200 of them.
The Keteleeria is native to southwest China, and is considered endangered.
The arboretum says one of the reasons the tree was planted there was to provide seeds to China if that proves necessary to keep the species alive.