The paper novelty of creating a “tree” from a rolled cylinder of newspaper seems to have appeared c. 1907. Ellis Stanyon advertised instructions for it in the October 1907 issue of Stanyon's Magic, Vol. 8 No. 1, p. 6.

The Newspaper Tree is also noted in a performance by Mrs. P. Martinka in The Conjurers' Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2 No. 12, Aug. 1908, p. 379.