A seemingly undesirable little cherry blossom tree has captured the imagination of D.C. and the rest of the country. 

Stumpy is a tiny, emaciated nub of a tree that sits on a flooded patch of land on the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. Despite his appearance, which looks to have sustained some real structural damage, he manages to bloom cherry blossoms year after year. (Colloquially Stumpy has been gendered; folks use he/him pronouns to refer to the tree, mostly because he was popularized through a meme by a teenage boy.)

And now, it seems like the entire area is infected with a real Stumpy mania. Hundreds of people have made the pilgrimage to see Stumpy the Cherry Blossom tree during this year’s blooming season. He has his own mascot. National outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, and NBC News have written entire articles dedicated to the tree’s popularity. On March 30, he was featured in a joke on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update with Michael Che and Colin Jost. 

The perseverant little tree has been a rising star in D.C. for the past four years. But soon, his light will be extinguished. 

Stumpy is one of 158 cherry trees along the National Mall that must be chopped down this spring. The move is part of a $113 million project aimed at rehabilitating the seawalls around the Tidal Basin and along the Potomac River through West Potomac Park. These repairs must be made in order to protect the majority of cherry trees from long-term damage due to failing infrastructure and rising sea levels. 

According to Mike Litterist, the chief of communications for the National Park Service, the damage Stumpy has sustained from inundation on the Tidal Basin is what has given him his atrophied appearance.

In an incredibly harrowing and deeply poetic way, it seems that the very damage that made Stumpy famous is also what is causing his demise.

Since the announcement about the trees’ removal on March 13, people in the D.C. area have rushed to memorialize the tree before it is too late. 

Stumpy’s first taste of fame came on Feb. 26, 2020, on the well-loved Washington D.C. subreddit. Jackson Winfrey, a high school senior from Kansas City visiting D.C. on a class trip, spotted the wounded cherry blossom tree, snapped a picture, and posted Stumpy to the subreddit. The post went viral on the hyper-local thread, capturing the attention of more than 500 users. 

Winfrey’s original post was meant to be a joke. It featured a photo of Stumpy pre-bloom with the caption, “This tree a little aways from Jefferson memorial is as dead as my love life, but I love it!” 

But Stumpy’s powerful imagery resonated deeply with many of the subreddit’s users. Instead of making people laugh, the tree prompted a sense of earnestness from the online community. Seeking to uplift both Stumpy and Winfrey, users wrote comments like, “May you bloom like this tree in the next few months” and “​​No matter how much they cut you down, let your light shine.” 

Since then, Stumpy has amassed a cult following online. Posters regularly submitted updates on his progress to the D.C. subreddit. Each spring, images of Stumpy’s full bloom during peak cherry blossom season flood social media sites including Twitter (now X) and TikTok. 

In 2023, WBALTV 11 called Stumpy a star among the Tidal Basin cherry blossoms. 

Since autumn of 2023, the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile and 5K has worked on making 2024 its “Year of Stumpy.” The CUCB planning committee has gone all out with this rollout. The group has unveiled an entire celebration of Stumpy’s life, complete with 25,000 T-shirts for runners and volunteers, 15,000 medals for participants who complete the runs, and an official 6-foot mascot. 

CUCB event director Phil Stewart says this celebration focuses on what Stumpy means to people around the region. “Stumpy is like a lot of us. We try harder and we make the most of what we’ve got,” Stewart tells City Paper. “Resilience is, I think, really key. It ties in with a lot of the runners who are running in the race.”  

The CUCB organizing committee received thousands of submissions for the T-shirt design contest for its 2024 races that take place on April 6 and 7, and its members drawn to a submission featuring Stumpy because of his perseverance. “We just felt like there was a natural connection between Stumpy and the participants in our race,” Stewart says. “We have runners of all abilities and for a lot of the participants in our race, completing this race is a big accomplishment and it takes a lot of resilience.”

Jessica Pascual is the local graphic designer who came up with the concept to use Stumpy as the focal point for this year’s races. She says Stumpy’s story inspired her to create the design for the T-shirt contest. “We were going around and looking at the cherry blossoms, and Stumpy was still alive,” Pascual says. “And I’m like, wow, this little tree by the Tidal Basin is still alive. It’s still flourishing. It’s resilient, essentially, and then I got the idea. That resonates with a lot of runners because you want to be resilient when you run.” 

For Pascual, that kind of powerful persistence is at the heart of Stumpy’s resonance. “It’s like an underdog story … You don’t have to be the prettiest tree out there. You don’t have to be the fastest runner in this Credit Union Cherry Blossom race. It’s your drive to stay alive or survive and work through all of whatever is around you … so I guess that’s why Stumpy has resonated with people.”

Stewart agrees that this aspect of Stumpy’s story is what has made him into such an important symbol. “Stumpy represents the underdog in a way: fighting back from challenges and triumphing over adversity … I’ve called him the little cherry tree that could,” Stewart says. “He’s smaller. He’s just got those few little blossoms coming out at the top, but darn it, he’s trying just as hard as those big, giant cherry trees that are all around him with a full head of bloom and so forth.”

While Stumpy will no longer grow in the Tidal Basin, he will live on in the hearts of the thousands across the D.C. area and the country. 

The National Park Service has cuttings from Stumpy that may be cloned and planted once the rehabilitation work is completed. And the CUCB has decided to adopt Stumpy’s story for their races permanently.

“Stumpy will become our permanent logo. He will continue to live on and appear this year and will appear next year and indefinitely,” Stewart says. “So we like to think that we’re providing a bridge for Stumpy to live on into the future.” 

The impact of this little cherry blossom tree will be felt for years to come. Stumpy’s story of hope and trying has made him into a cultural icon. 

Long live Stumpy the cherry blossom tree.