For several months, the palm trees of Mexico City have been drying out. Several causes are mentioned, but there is above all a disease which was detected already ten years ago and which is today considered to be the main cause of their gradual disappearance, that of the “pink rot fungus”. Once reached, the tree withers, its palms turn yellow and eventually fall.
There is practically no remedy for this evil, which is aggravated by climate change and which is decimating the rows of palm trees so characteristic of the main avenues of Mexico City. There are around 15,000 palm trees still surviving in the capital. Dozens of sick specimens have already been uprooted and the authorities announce the felling of several hundred palm trees in the coming weeks. The other palm trees will be pruned in the hope of preventing the plague from spreading.
A slaughter that pains the inhabitants of Mexico City: on April 24, they organized a farewell ceremony for the most famous palm tree in the city, the large palm tree of Reforma. He was enthroned in the middle of a roundabout also called “roundabout of the palm tree”, on which the inhabitants met to applaud him.
Último adiós después de poco más de un siglo de la PALMERA de Paseo de la Reforma que la 4T DEJÓ MORIR.
Insisto, no saben gobernar. ♀️ pic.twitter.com/5ya4yEpn7c
— Mariana Gómez del Campo (@marianagc) April 24, 2022
Because it was a familiar image on their daily journeys, the inhabitants of Mexico practically personified this palm tree: people were seen embracing its trunk, kissing it, others placed a wreath of flowers at the foot of the tree. tree or messages of thanks. This palm tree had stood at this crossroads for a hundred years. And in the past week, dozens more palm trees on Reforma Avenue were uprooted.
The choice of the tree that will be planted to replace it was submitted to a popular vote by the town hall of Mexico City and it was the ahuehuete, a tree endemic to the region, which won.
#Ahuehuete is #Mexico City‘s national tree and was selected by its beauty, longevity and tradition. pic.twitter.com/J865gb5XSK
— Mexico (@mexico) April 9, 2016
A verdict that delights scientists who say that palm trees are not made to grow in Mexico City, especially because of the altitude. It is indeed a tropical species that grows at about sea level and suffers at 2,400 meters above sea level. Specialists recommend planting, instead of palm trees, endemic species that are more resistant to diseases. Like the ahuehuete, or Taxodium mucronatum, also known as “Moctezuma cypress”, a tree with beautiful, very dense foliage.