In search of lost fruit: the explorers tracking down ancient trees before they are gone forever

Fruit and nut explorers traverse the US on an ecological mission to preserve the last cultivars of old and important plants

Eliza Greenman plucks a wrinkly, canoe-shaped leaf from a tree and cradles it in her hands before sliding it into a plastic freezer bag. She's standing beneath a mulberry tree in a field on the banks of the Mattaponi River, a tributary that cuts through eastern Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay. Greenman had to sleuth to find this historical mulberry, which is meandering, ancient, studded with unripe, spiky white fruits, gnarled with English ivy and a distinctive wave pattern on its bark.

It's so cool to imagine that this field was potentially all just mulberries," Greenman says, staring out at the shimmery rye across the road.