For the past few years, Patrik Svedberg has been taking photos of a beautiful Swedish tree he dubbed The Broccoli Tree. In a short time, the tree gained a healthy following on Instagram, becoming both a tourist attraction and an online celebrity of sorts. (I posted about tree two years ago.) Yesterday, Svedberg posted a sad update: someone had vandalized the tree by sawing through one of the limbs.

One of the trees branches has now (a couple of days ago..?) been sawn in almost all the way through and it’s just a matter of time before it’ll fall off. I won’t be around to document it, others will for sure so I guess you lunatics who did it can enjoy every moment.

Very soon after, it was decided by some authority that the vandalism meant the entire tree had to come down. A work crew arrived and now it’s gone:

Oscar Wilde once wrote that “Each man kills the thing he loves”. I don’t know exactly what Wilde meant by that, but our collective attention and obsession, amplified by the speed and intensity of the internet & social media, tends to ruin the things we love: authors, musicians, restaurants, actors, beloved movies, vacation spots, artists, democracies, and even a tree that became too famous to live.

Update: Via the Broccoli Tree’s Instagram Story comes a pair of updates related to the cutting down of the tree that I wanted to record here for posterity.

1. Along with many other people, I wondered why the whole tree had to come down because of a single cut in one of the branches. The answer is “because they found cuts in most limbs/branches some day after so someone had gone back to ‘finish the job’”. :(

2. The tree was cut in that way and the stump left so that new sprouts might form. Life finds a way! Here’s hoping for the eventual appearance of Broccoli Tree 2.0!