Look at the road behind you

[sovay]

Finally, the day is clear enough for me to get a good spring picture of the Jefferson elm on our street. I'm not sure how old it is, except not very. Per A Canterbury Tale (1944): "You can't hurry an elm."



My niece wanted to know what was so special about it, so I wound up explaining Dutch elm disease and the importance of resistant trees, like the survivor on the National Mall from which this sapling was cultivated. The city seems to have accepted us adopting it under the name of Bella Ptelea. That's pte-re-wa in Linear B.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I remember seeing them dying, and I'm so glad to know they're coming back! After the elms died in Madison they foolishly replaced 1 to 1 with ash trees, which grow faster and have been savaged by the emerald ash borer in the last decade. Finally learning the lessons and replacing with a variety of street trees.

My intro to grassroots politics was my mother joining many other dendrophiles to keep sycamores on the banks of the Charles.

[sovay]

I remember seeing them dying, and I'm so glad to know they're coming back!

I hadn't known there were resistant cultivars until this one appeared on our street and I went to research it. I hope you see some where you are.

After the elms died in Madison they foolishly replaced 1 to 1 with ash trees, which grow faster and have been savaged by the emerald ash borer in the last decade.

Ouch. We have ash borer here, too, alas; it killed the tree that used to stand directly across the street from my office window.

Finally learning the lessons and replacing with a variety of street trees.

I wonder if that accounts for the diversity of trees Somerville has been planting—maple, willow oak, sweet gum, various kinds of maple, keyaki which I had never heard of before.

My intro to grassroots politics was my mother joining many other dendrophiles to keep sycamores on the banks of the Charles.

I'm so glad! Those trees are very important to me.