On the topmost tier of the city of Minas Tirith, beneath its crowning White Tower, stood a courtyard paved with white stone. Within the courtyard was a green lawn, and within that was a pool with a fountain. At the end of the Third Age, a dead and withered tree stood here, with the water of the fountain spraying its branches and dripping back into the pool. At the time of the War of the Ring, the Dead Tree had stood in the High Court of Minas Tirith for one hundred and forty-seven years, the remnant of the last White Tree of Minas Tirith. It represented a last memory of a proud tradition that could be traced back through millennia to the Two Trees of Valinor.
Before the White Tree could be burned, Isildur secretly entered the courts and succeeded in stealing away one of its fruits. From that fruit, a new seedling was grown, and when Númenor fell, that seedling was carried by Isildur to Middle-earth. He planted the Tree in his own courts in the tower of Minas Ithil, but even there it was not safe. Sauron - now returned from Númenor to Mordor - launched an attack through Ephel Dúath and captured Minas Ithil, destroying the White Tree. Once again Isildur was able to save the line of the trees, carrying away another seedling as he fled from the capture his tower.
The sapling was planted in the courts before the King's residence on the highest tier of Minas Anor, and it grew quickly to become a tall White Tree. Its leaves were long and narrow, dark above but shining silver beneath, and it produced clusters of white flowers. From those flowers would grow fruit, but the fruit of the tree would rarely ripen, though it could remain dormant for many years.
The Citadel of Gondor at the peak of Minas Anor had its own company of guards, and these guards took the White Tree as their emblem, following the arms of Elendil, and bore its image on their black surcoats. This livery was maintained over the long history of the tower, even to the end of the Third Age and beyond, a period of more than three thousand years.
Though the tree had an extraordinarily long life, it was not immortal. After watching over the long history of Gondor through the first half of the Third Age, the tree eventually died. This was during the time of the Dark Plague, which devastated the southern lands of Middle-earth. In that plague, KingTelemnar died, as did all of his heirs, and as Telemnar's line came to an end, so the White Tree also reached the end of its life. At the time of its death, the first White Tree of Minas Anor had grown in the heights of the City for 1,634 years.
This was not, however, the Dead Tree that stood in the courts of Minas Tirith at the end of the Third Age. Rather, a seedling of this tree existed, and it was planted to grow into a new White Tree. That White Tree would go on to live almost as long as its predecessor.
Belecthor II was succeeded as Steward by his son Thorondir, and from Thorondir's time to the end of the Third Age, the Dead Tree was left standing. It remained in its place of honour, showered by a fountain in the middle of its court, surrounded by a green lawn, but now all that remained of the White Tree of Minas Tirith was its withered husk.
Though the Tree had been dead for more than a century, the people of Gondor still preserved a desperate hope that one day a living White Tree might take its place.1 This must have seemed a faint hope indeed as the years passed, but after the War of the Ring, the Dead Tree was indeed replaced. The WizardGandalf led the new KingAragorn Elessar up into the snows of Mindolluin above Minas Tirith, and there they found a fresh seedling of the old White Tree growing untended on the mountainside. It was later said that the place were the Tree was found had been a long-forgotten hallow, and a seed had waited there for long years until it had sprung into growth just a few years before the War of the Ring.
The new seedling was carried back to the High Court of the City, and planted in place of the Dead Tree that had stood there for more than a century. So the return of the line of Kings to Gondor was marked by the return of a living White Tree of Minas Tirith. The Dead Tree was uprooted and carried to Rath Dínen, and given a place among the Tombs of the Kings, Ruling Stewards and heroes of Gondor's long history.
Notes
1
This belief that the White Tree would flower again is only touched on briefly, but Faramir speaks of a hope that the Tree will grow once again, and he was evidently not alone in this. After the Dark Tower was destroyed, the people of Minas Tirith sang joyfully of the White Tree being renewed, something that they apparently associated with the coming of a new King. Indeed, the formulation in their song is so specific ('And the Tree that was withered shall be renewed, / and he shall plant it in the high places...', The Return of the King VI 5, The Steward and the King) that it seems to represent a known tradition or prophecy. The symbolism here is hard to avoid: the decay of Dead Tree reflected the slow fall of the Rulers of the South-kingdom, and the return of the King brought a renewal embodied in the return of a living White Tree (indeed Aragorn's name Envinyatar, the 'Renewer', directly reflects this connection).