The Evil Tree is a members-only Distractions and Diversions event, released on 25 February 2009. This event can be done twice daily; the counter resets at 00:00 GMT. Players must log out to reset the clock. A tree will spawn two hours after the death of the last tree in that world. As such, players may kill a tree in one world and switch to another world where a new tree is just sprouting.

Players may join a clan chat dedicated to finding evil trees, as it is easier to find trees in groups than alone. These clan chats can be found by searching the RuneScape forums.

Warning: Interacting with a tree at any stage of development counts as one of the two daily trees. This applies to nurturing trees, even if players do not have the required levels to chop or burn the fully grown tree. Right clicking to inspect and check a fully grown tree's health does not count as one of the daily interactions.

Evil trees appear every 2 hours according to a Jagex Mod.

Overview

A large group taking on the evil tree.

The purpose of the event is to kill the Evil tree, after which the player is rewarded; see below. There are seven types of evil trees and twenty-six possible locations.

Farming experience is granted each time the Sapling advances to another stage of development. Woodcutting experience is granted every few seconds during chopping. Firemaking experience is granted each time a new section of the Tree is lit.

A leprechaun is found near all trees. He will explain the evil tree and is the one to reward players.

Stages

An evil tree has a total of six stages: stages 1–5 are different growths of the sapling, and stage six is a fully grown evil tree. The strange sapling may be nurtured by players to make it grow quickly, but it will grow on its own. Currently, the only way to determine which type of tree the sapling will become is by checking the farming experience gained; see chart. However, this counts as one of the twice-daily interactions. Players may wish to refrain from nurturing trees until they know if they are interested in killing the resulting tree. After the sapling is fully grown, it becomes an evil tree.

Locating

There are several ways to find an evil tree:

• Speak with a Spirit tree (this requires completion of Tree Gnome Village). It will tell you the status of the tree in each world. Once the strange sapling sprouts, it will give players a hint to its location; see here. Note that each hint leads to at least two locations. Once the Sapling has grown into a full tree, Spirit trees will teleport the player to the exact location. Note that if a quest is required that you have not completed, (such as Kharazi Jungle) the Spirit tree will not teleport you.
• Be nearby. Once the Strange Sapling sprouts, roots will briefly shoot out of the surrounding ground. These roots can appear a good distance from the location of the tree, so search carefully.
• Join a clan. Many clans will be advertised near the spirit trees (mostly the Grand Exchange tree)

Killing

Evil tree roots.

The evil tree is killed using two methods: cutting with a hatchet and lighting fires at its base. Different levels are required to cut and burn the tree; see below. Chopping the tree and its roots gives Woodcutting experience, and lighting fires gives Firemaking experience.

To chop the tree, a Hatchet is needed. As with all woodcutting, higher-level hatchets cut faster than lower-level ones. To burn the tree, the player will require a tinderbox and some kindling, which is attained from chopping down one of the four roots that grow on the north, east, south, or west side of the tree. Upon request, the leprechaun will provide the player with a Bronze Hatchet and a Tinderbox.

The roots will strike and stun players who are standing nearby. They will also force players who are standing on their spawn location off the way each time they spawn. There are eight spots at the base of the tree to light. The fires do damage to the tree over time; therefore it is recommended to light the fires as early as possible to maximize damage.

The tree begins with 100% life, and the player with 0% damage. As players chop the tree and the fires burn, the tree's life drops and the player's damage increases. This can be checked by right-clicking and inspecting the tree. Doing so will stop the player from chopping, note, so do so sparingly. The tree does not always die when it reaches 0% health, and it occasionally lives for a considerable time after reaching 0%.

If an evil tree takes too long to die, it gets struck by lightning. Its health then drops to 50% after it has appeared for 10 minutes; then it drops to 25% if it has appeared for 20 minutes; and then it will die on the third hit if tree has not yet died after appearing for 30 minutes. This also has a lightning sound effect to go along with it.

Skill Requirements

Evil Tree		Woodcutting Level	Farming Level	Firemaking Level
Normal Evil Tree		1	1	1
Oak Evil Tree		15	7	15
Willow Evil Tree		30	15	30
Maple Evil Tree		45	22	45
Yew Evil Tree		60	30	60
Magic Evil Tree		75	37	75
Elder Evil Tree		85	42	85

Locations with hints

• Hints are given by Spirit trees when there is a Strange Sapling.
• There are currently 26 possible known locations.
• All hints refer to at least two possible locations (occasionally three or four).
• Hints start with "It can be found...".

Hints	Possible Locations	Map
Due west of a town called Lumbridge	North of the wall between Lumbridge and the swamp
	South of Draynor Village near the willow trees
Outside of City you call Varrock	North of Varrock Palace, near the Wilderness ditch
	East of Varrock, near Tolna's rift
Close to a place called 'Draynor'	North of Draynor Village near Draynor Manor
	South of Draynor Village near the willow trees
Close to the town you call "Seers"	South of Seers' Village Flax Field by the Yew trees
	Heart of McGrubor's Wood
	North-west of Seers' Village bank
North as the crow flies from Seers' Village	North-west of Seers' Village bank
	East of the house portal in Rellekka
North as the crow flies from the market of Ardougne	Heart of McGrubor's Wood
	South-west of the Ranging Guild
Close to the home of "Legends"	North of Legends' Guild
	South of Legends' Guild
Close to the town you call Yanille	North of Yanille
	South of Tree Gnome Village, West of Yanille
On the island known as Karamja	Near the nature altar, north of Shilo Village
	East of the Teak trees in the Kharazi Jungle
Close to a dungeon entrance and within a tropical jungle	Near the entrance of the Brimhaven Dungeon
	Ape Atoll, near the entrance to Ape Atoll Dungeon
On the southern coast of a tropical island	East of the teak trees in the Kharazi Jungle
	Ape Atoll, near the entrance to Ape Atoll Dungeon
To the south of a gnome settlement	South of Tree Gnome Stronghold, East of the Outpost
	South of Tree Gnome Village, West of Yanille
In the lands inhabited by elves	Lletya, South of the Magic trees
	East of Tyras Camp
Close to a runecrafting altar	Near the Body altar, South of the Monastery
	West of Nature altar, North of the Shilo Village
Close to a mine on the outskirts of a city	West of Falador
	South of Legends Guild
Close to a large collection of willow trees	South of Draynor Village near the willow trees
	North-west of Seers' Village bank
	South of Legends Guild
	South-west part of Tree Gnome Stronghold, north of Brimstail's cave and east of the bridge
By a collection of Yew Trees	South of Seers' Village Flax Field by the Yew trees
	North of the wall between Lumbridge and the swamp
With rare trees and ogres nearby	South of Castle Wars (North of fairy ring BKP)
	West of Oo'glog, East of Mobilising Armies

Rewards

Experience

• When an evil tree is still a sapling, Farming experience can be gained for nurturing it. No items are required to do this.
• When an evil tree is fully grown, chopping the roots and the tree itself gains Woodcutting experience.
• When a root vanishes, the player gains Evil tree kindling, which can be used on the tree to set fire to a part of the tree. This awards Firemaking experience.
• Sacred clay hatchets give double experience when chopping evil trees.

Note: the Ring of fire, Flame gloves, and lumberjack clothing give no additional experience, and the Inferno Adze will not automatically light any kindling received.

Evil Tree	Experience
	Nurturing	Firemaking	Chopping roots	Chopping tree
Normal	20	200	3	15.1
Oak	45	300	6.5	32.5
Willow	66	450	9	45.5
Maple	121	675	11	55
Yew	172.5	1,112.5	12.5	64
Magic	311	1,517.5	15	71
Elder	687.5	2,000.5	17	77.8

Items

A log being escorted to the player's bank.

• You can sell the Evil tree kindling to the leprechaun for 25 coins each, or choose to keep the kindling to use on future Evil trees. All trees give the same type of kindling.

• When the tree dies, it turns grey and withers. Players always get the following items from the evil tree as a reward:
  • Noted logs of the same type as the tree. Elder trees offer noted Yew, Magic, Teak or Mahogany logs.
  • Coins
  • Tree Seed or Bird's nest
  • Level 1 Clue scroll
  • Key halves

Further woodcutting

For a period of time after the tree is killed, players are given several advantages when cutting trees. The amount of time depends on the percent damage done to the evil tree, and the type of evil tree; see below. This ranges from 2 to 30 minutes. Note that these abilities only apply to cutting Normal, Oak, Willow, Maple, Yew, and Magic trees. (Does not include other evil trees or farming-plot trees.)

• Significantly reduced chance of a tree being felled when a log is harvested. Note that for this to apply, nobody else may be cutting the tree.
• Significantly increased chance of having birds' nests fall out of trees.
• Ability to have logs "magically escorted" to the players bank while Woodcutting if their inventory is full.

Players wishing to take advantage of this feature should consider cutting trees which yield logs quickly. Logs cut, when having a full inventory, end up in your bank. The most efficient trees to chop for Woodcutting experience for the duration of the reward are willow trees. Some of the best places to make use of the automatic banking are:

• Willow trees outside Crafting Guild or Fishing Guild (using Skills Necklace)
• Willow trees near the Lady of the Lake in Taverley (using Balloon transport system)
• Willow trees near the Lumbridge Lake (Home Teleport)
• Willow trees to the north of Seers Bank (Camelot Teleport)
• Willow trees west of Draynor Village, by Port Sarim (Amulet of Glory Teleport or Cabbage Port)
• Willow trees south west of Ardougne bank. (using Ardougne Cloak)

For players with higher woodcutting levels, maples in an uncrowded area are also good for using the magical log-banking. The best location for this is the forest of maple trees west of Sinclair Mansion, north of Seer's Village.

Maximum rewards

The following table shows the highest reported reward possible. A lower percentage reduces the rewards.

Evil Tree	Logs	Gold coins	Duration of log teleportation
Normal	12	166	6 minutes
Oak	34	326	10 minutes
Willow	226	567	14 minutes
Maple	131	1,103	18 minutes
Yew	15	2,352	22 minutes
Magic	10	4,598	26 minutes
Elder	181 Teak or 102 Mahogany or 56 Yews or 18 Magic	8,291	30 minutes

Music

Music track unlocked:

• Trees aren't your Friends

Trivia

• On its day of release, a Server blackout occurred. The Grand Exchange Database page was also affected. Players saw items rising over 200,000% in a day, but the actual price of the items were intact.
• When right-clicking the music track "Trees aren't your Friends" in the Music list and choosing the "Unlock hint" option, the hint will state "This track was unlocked during The Evil Tree minigame." This might be an indication that the Evil Tree distraction was intended to be a minigame at first. The Evil Tree is also under the Minigames index in the in-game Woodcutting guide.
• With the release of Evil Trees, pures who had completed Monkey Madness gained the ability to travel to Ape Atoll without receiving the experience rewards from Daero. This was accomplished by using a Spirit tree to teleport to a tree located there. This bug prompted Jagex to simply allow players to return to Ape Atoll normally without claiming the experience reward.
• Originally, Spirit trees would only mention evil trees after the sprout had already appeared. It wasn't until a few weeks after the original release that they began to give information on how long it would take for the next evil tree to sprout. This made it much easier for a single person to find a tree.
• If somebody lights a fire where a root will sprout, when the ashes appear and the root sprouts again, the ashes will appear on top of the root. Once the root goes away, the ashes will look to be floating. (Note): Since 9 November 2009, an evil tree can no longer cause items to float above its roots.
• If you choose to claim your bonus at a later time after finishing the tree, the duration of your bonus will be half of what it normally is. You can also talk to any tool leprechaun to receive your reward.
• As of October 2009, Achey tree logs will not be transported to the bank. The player receives a "Your inventory is too full to hold any logs." message instead.
• Logging out pauses the remaining log teleportation time.
• The "escorted log" animation is only seen by the respective player. You will never see the animation on another player with "auto-banking", only yourself.
• A few days after the release of the Evil Tree, Spirit trees said 'despatch' instead of 'dispatch' when talked to.
• It is possible to attack roots of the evil tree with a Machete (and gem-tipped ones, too).
• As of recently, the spirit tree in Varrock told free players when an evil tree would next sprout, though it always said it hadn't sprouted yet.