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Discover Mid-America — June 2008

The tree from hell

by Doug Bratcher

The poem begins, “Under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands.” Outside of my shop spreads a tree of a different sort.

When I first moved into my west-facing shop the sun was not a factor. It was wintertime and shade was not needed to ward off the sun’s afternoon glare. As the first buds of spring began to appear on trees in our area, I noticed a small tree between my building and an adjacent coal shed was void of new growth. A few weeks after local trees were full of spring leaves, this small tree peeking out between the two buildings began to sprout. I left the tree alone as I felt a little shade later in the summer would shield me from the sun’s harsh rays when I worked outside of the shop. A month later the old coal shed was to be torn down and I made plans to save the little shade the tree provided.

After the coal shed was removed there was a concrete floor separated by a two-foot void reaching the side of my building. This void was full of coal spilled from the old shed. My tree, now in open sun and able to soak in water from the rain, was growing like a weed. Little did I know it really was a weed to those with a botanical background.

The first full year of its rapid growth had passed and spring brought new growth again, a few weeks later than normal for area trees. In May, the tree, which was actually two trees growing up side by side, produced a fuzzy bloom. When it rained this bloom smelled a lot like a room full of cats without a litter box. The shade was still appreciated and the stink ignored. Then, the wind blew and the offensive pollen rained down like snow and permeated every nook and cranny within the surrounding area. It fell on the concrete and the wind moved it on into the shop where it became piles of yellow green debris.

I had learned the tree was called “Tree of Heaven” or Ailanthus. The next phase of this heavenly tree was to shed itself of the stalks that the pollen had grown on. This resulted in hundreds of small sticks that clogged up the vacuum when I tried to clean it up. Later, I noticed the twin tree had seedpods forming on the ends of some branches. I now realized there were a male and a female tree. The tree was also spreading via the coal left between the two buildings and sending up shoots of green that stunk real bad when broken or cut down.

Fall came and my tree still had its leaves long after surrounding area trees. Then there was frost one night and I came to the shop to see a huge pile of green leaves around the tree.

After raking the leaves and carrying them off I decided maybe this tree was not really a tree of heaven after all. Weeks later, the tree was now dropping the central stem the leaves grew on making yet another mess to clean up. Next, the seed, which was a flat brown color, began dropping. After that the seed stalks fell. Now it seemed this tree was dropping something almost daily.

I still liked the shade on a hot summer day and the leaves shielded me from the sun's late afternoon rays.

I decided to do a little research on a tree that I now called” the tree from hell.” On the web site of www.botanical.com, the tree is described as an ecological threat. I agreed it was at least a threat to my cleanup abilities.

I went on to read the species was native to China and was first introduced to America by a gardener in Philadelphia, PA in 1784, and was common in nurseries by 1840. It soon became a pest to agriculture as it was hard to kill and sprouted like weeds in abandoned lots and mining sites, and was sometimes called as I called it, “the tree from hell.”

It still intrigued me how this tree could be called Tree of Heaven with this history. A variety of the tree is used for a bitter tonic to cure illness and in France it is cultivated for its leaves on which the caterpillar of the silk-spinning Ailanthus moth is fed.

The wood is yellowish white and I made buckets from some of its wood. I have yet to brew any tea from its leaves or eat any bark for my stomach aches. Still, I will put up with its continual dropping because I like its shade

Doug Bratcher and his wife Jan own Bratcher Cooperage in Liberty, MO.