Threatened By Slime Flux and Other Ailments
By the 1990s, the tree was in a weakened condition. Some attributed its condition to the Encino Reservoir, built in 1921, for cutting off the natural water flow to the tree. Others blamed it on air pollution from traffic on nearby Ventura Boulevard. It also suffered from oak-root fungus. In 1991, it was diagnosed with slime flux, a tree ailment caused by bacteria that generate fermentation inside the tree and send toxic sap oozing through the bark. Arborists reported that the tree desperately needed special care to save it. Arborists and city officials argued over the proper treatment for the ailing tree, with one arborist suggesting the city chisel small holes in the bark to release the toxic sap that was slowly killing the oak. Others suggested the drilling would put too much stress on the tree, which should be allowed to heal itself.
Efforts to save the ailing oak became a publicized cause. In 1996, the Times reported on the oak: "His skin is mottled, some of his limbs are held together with pins, and his great, shaggy head hangs from its own weight. Old Lang is in trouble." In 1997, the Encino oak was honored at an Arbor Day ceremony attended by Wirt Morton, the great-great-grandson of National Arbor Day founder J. Sterling Morton, who on seeing the giant oak said: "I've never seen anything as phenomenal as that."
Read more about this topic: Encino Oak Tree
Famous quotes containing the words threatened, slime, flux and/or ailments:
“[He] didn’t dare to, because his father had a weak heart and habitually threatened to drop dead if anybody hurt his feelings. You may have noticed that people with weak hearts are the tyrants of English married life.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“All is waste and worthless, till
Arrives the selecting will,
And, out of slime and chaos, Wit
Draws the threads of fair and fit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No civilization ... would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“For the shoe pinches, even though it fits perfectly.
Apples were made to be gathered, also the whole host of the world’s ailments and troubles.
There is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation.
Tomorrow you’ll weep what of it?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)