The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Yarmouth Elm a Stark Reminder of Threat to Native Trees

January 19, 2010 - YARMOUTH -- The smell of freshly cut lumber hung over East Main Street late this week after the first limbs were removed from Maine's oldest and largest elm tree, a behemoth known here as Herbie.

The tree's demise marks the end of an era – and an old friend – for the community and the tree's 101-year-old caretaker, Ralph Knight. Knight plans to be in the crowd watching the final pieces of the tree come down Monday.

The scent is a reminder of Maine's dramatically changed landscape, the ecological cost of global trade and the insidious disease that continues to chip away at the last of Maine's grand old elm trees.

"It's part of the New England heritage that's disappearing," said Bob Palmer, a commercial arborist who is the caretaker for Kennebunkport's elm trees.

American elms once lined streets and shaded homes and parks across the state. Communities planted them by the thousands in the 19th century. They grew fast and tall and spread into a vase-like shape that provided ample shade. And they were hard to kill.

Elms also were popular because of their status as an American icon. Massachusetts colonists rallied around one famous elm in Boston before the American Revolution, giving them the nickname Liberty trees and making them a symbol of the nation's freedom.

Peter Lammert, a state forester and the tree warden in Thomaston, said double rows of elms lined the town's Main Street in the 1950s. "It was literally a green leaf tunnel," he said.

In Portland, thousands of stately elms stood along the Eastern and Western promenades, lined streets on Munjoy Hill and towered over the once-popular swimming fountain in Lincoln Park.

"When I took over in 1956 (as Yarmouth's tree warden), there were about 700 street elms," Knight said. "Like most towns, it was like a canopy, really."

The globalization of trade would bring down the elms.

MORE THREATS ARRIVING

Dutch elm disease arrived in the United States in the 1920s in a load of timber from Europe. The fatal disease, first identified by scientists in Holland, is caused by a fungus that's carried by elm bark beetles.

The disease spread from tree to tree and swept through Maine in the 1960s, forcing communities to cut down thousands of infected trees to try to slow its spread.

In Portland, the towering elms were cut, stacked and taken to a dump site along Riverside Street that is now a golf driving range, said City Arborist Jeff Tarling.

"The whole West End was dead trees," he said.

Dutch elm disease, which came soon after the American chestnut blight, was one of the first examples of a destructive invasion by a foreign disease or insect.

Today, new threats such as the Asian longhorned beetle, which kills maples, and the emerald ash borer, which devours ash trees, are spreading through the Northeast.

State officials fear they are just one load of campfire wood away from entering Maine, and the Legislature is considering a ban on the transportation of any firewood into the state.

"There's pretty much a terminal threat to all the varieties of trees, thanks to globalization and importing all the insects and diseases from all over the world," said Palmer, the arborist, who owns Tamarack Tree & Landscape Co.

"(Native trees) haven't got a chance to build a up a resistance to them."

LIKE FIGHTING CANCER

While the vast majority of Maine's elms came down in the 1960s and '70s, the fight against Dutch elm disease never stopped.

The relatively few old elm trees that still stand are the ones that were more isolated, or more resistant. Many, like Yarmouth's Herbie, have been repeatedly saved from the disease by devoted caretakers.

Frank Knight nursed Herbie through 14 bouts of Dutch elm disease, dating back to the late 1950s, until it finally succumbed in the past year.

"They used to say you couldn't save them," Knight said. "But Herbie, he was a such a beautiful tree. I said, 'I'm going to try.'"

Knight's ability to keep the grand tree alive for so long is widely respected by arborists and tree wardens, who know how much work is involved.

"(The disease) is a lot like cancer. You try and treat it chemically and then you try and treat it surgically," said Palmer, who has taken care of Kennebunkport's elms for 34 years.

Arborists and tree wardens regularly inject old elms with fungicide or biological inoculations to fight or prevent infection. And, whenever they see a limb with yellow leaves, they remove it.

GIANTS CONTINUE TO FALL

Yarmouth now has 12 of its original 700 street elms. Portland has about 25. Kennebunkport has more than 90.

Still, they end up losing them, one by one.

Portland will cut down two more of its original elms this winter, although it's not clear whether Dutch elm disease is the reason they are dying, said Tarling. One stands at the corner of High and Deering streets, and the other is on the Western Promenade, next to Maine Medical Center.

They're among Portland's oldest elms, with trunks about 24 inches in diameter.

Herbie's trunk, by comparison, is about 6 feet wide.

"Herbie was so much bigger than the rest of the elm trees, it was in a league by itself," said Tarling.

Yarmouth's tree, which rises about 110 feet over East Main Street, is considered to be the largest elm in New England. It is estimated to be 240 years old; its precise age will be determined after the trunk is cut down Monday.

SEEKING HERBIE'S SUCCESSOR

State forestry officials, who keep a "big tree list," don't yet know where the next champion elm is, and will ask for nominations later this year.

Arborists and tree wardens already have some ideas.

Tarling is taken with a large elm in North Saco, near the Scarborough line.

Kennebunkport has that one beat, according to Palmer. The town has some elms with trunks more than 50 inches across.

Bath has at least one about that size.

Most bets, however, are on one of the elms in Castine.

Perhaps partly because of its isolation, the Down East town has more than 300 old elms, said Town Manager Dale Abernathy, and several have trunks at least 60 inches wide.

Castine's elms are not immune, however. "We removed about eight last year, and one of them was one of the largest and oldest trees in town," he said.

There is some hope in the newer varieties of elms, which appear to be more disease-resistant. Many communities have planted the trees in the past few decades, although some have been hit by the disease, experts said.

'NOTHING IS FOREVER'

The loss of Herbie is stirring memories and emotions among people who care for trees.

Palmer, for one, doesn't plan to watch it come down. "I've seen enough elms go. I don't want to be at another funeral," he said.

Other arborists and volunteer tree wardens from across the state plan to be in Yarmouth on Monday, to pay their respects to Knight and his tree.

One of them is Thomas Hoerth, Bath's arborist and a professor at Southern Maine Community College. He plans to collect buds and stems from Herbie's branches so he and his students can clone the tree, grafting its genetic material onto other elm roots.

Knight, who has been receiving "thank-you" and sympathy cards from across the country, said he'll watch the final pieces of the tree come down.

"Nothing is forever. My time's about due," he said. "I'm just grateful we did have him for about 50 years after they said we can't save him. Every night I thank the good Lord that we did."

By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, January 16, 2010


Lakes:
Regions: Mid Coast


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News