BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Palm trees have become so much a part of the Los
Angeles image that pop signer Neil Diamond once sang that America's
second-largest city is a place where "palm trees grow and rents are low."
Well, low rents are gone and the palm trees
are in danger of vanishing.
The trees are dying of old age and a fungal disease,
disappearing one by one from parks and streets, and city planners are replacing
them with oaks, sycamores and other species that are actually native to Los
Angeles and offer more shade, too.
"Oak trees are more native to L.A. than palm trees?"
Scott Wannberg said from behind the counter of trendy Dutton's Books in
Brentwood, not far from the palm-lined streets of Hollywood. "I don't know about
that, but I know one thing: I like palm trees!"
The palm tree may be better symbol of L.A. than many
realize. Like the many young people who come to Los Angeles in search of
Hollywood stardom, palm trees are not even from there; they were brought here
100 years ago or more from Latin America and other exotic locales.
"I think the palm tree kind of fits with the whole Southern
California vibe," says Jonathan Scott, who manages the fashionable downtown
restaurant The Palm.
Steve Dunlap, a supervising tree surgeon with the Los
Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, says the problem is that large numbers
of the Canary Island Date Palm — trees with rough trunks and a topknot of fronds
that look like green dreadlocks — are succumbing to a fungal disease.
Tree surgeons don't know how to stop the fungus,
which gets into the soil. Dunlap said it doesn't make sense to replace dying
palms with new ones that will probably fall victim to the same ailment. So the
city has been planting other varieties of trees.
The palms are vanishing just as Los Angeles is
starting a project to plant a million new trees. On Oct. 1, officials gave away
3,000 trees, and they have compiled a list of nearly 60 varieties they are
planting and encouraging residents to plant.
Palm trees are not on the list.
"They don't provide the same benefits as the other,
more leafy trees," says Paula Daniels, a Board of Public Works commissioner who
is heading up the planting effort.
Their tall, bare trunks make them inferior when it
comes to providing shade, Daniels said, and some experts believe their scant
leaves make them less effective at trapping air pollution. Enditem
(Agencies)
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