Surviving Apollo 14 Moon Tree clone thrives at Tell City station

The rarest Moon Tree in Perry County is still alive and growing at the Tell City Ranger Station. One surviving clone of the original Apollo 14 sweetgum trees has taken root there, giving Tell City a living link to the space age that residents can actually visit.

The original Moon Trees at the Tell City Ranger District Office were cut down in late 2023 after 47 years. The trees had been declining for several years and had become a hazard. In 2023, the Forest Service grafted six sweetgum trees from the originals, then grew the clones in a nursery. Four were sent back in March 2025, but three did not survive. One remaining tree was planted at the Tell City Ranger Station and is now doing well, with staff adding a protective plastic tube to keep deer and rabbits from feeding on it and to shield the stem from wind damage.

That survival matters because the Tell City trees were never ordinary ornamentals. Apollo 14 astronaut and former Forest Service smokejumper Stuart Roosa carried tree seeds into lunar orbit in 1971. The Forest Service later germinated those seeds and planted the resulting seedlings widely, many during the U.S. bicentennial in 1976. NASA says the Tell City Moon Trees were sweetgums planted sometime in 1976, and notes they were only about 20 feet high in an April 2003 photo because they were growing under larger trees and at the northern edge of sweetgum range in the Midwest.

Tell City’s connection to the program is part of a larger national story. NASA and the USDA Forest Service revived the Moon Tree program with Artemis I in 2022, sending roughly 1,000 seeds in one release and about 2,000 in another across five species, including sweetgum, loblolly pine, Douglas-fir, giant sequoia and American sycamore. NASA said more than 1,000 organizations applied for Artemis I Moon Tree seedlings in fall 2023, a sign that the idea still has strong educational pull.

For Perry County, the surviving clone is more than a botanical curiosity. It gives teachers a hands-on science lesson, offers families a field-trip stop at 248 15th Street, and ties the Hoosier National Forest Tell City Office to a story that reaches from Apollo 14 to Artemis. The office also serves visitors with restrooms, a nature store and a pollinator garden, making the Moon Tree one more reason the station stands out as a local landmark. A stump from the original trees has even sprouted new growth that may later supply twigs for future grafting, extending the line if this one clone continues to thrive.