Flint Expat Classics: Ode to the Ghetto Palm (Ailanthus Altissima)

Originally published on Friday, June 19, 2009

I mentioned the ghetto palm in my story on house hunting in Flint, and it seems some readers are not familiar with the charms of this invasive species, also known as the Tree-of-Heaven. I'll let the Plant Conservation Alliance, which describes the tree on its "Alien Plant Working Group Least Wanted" list, sing its praises:

"Tree-of-heaven is a prolific seed producer, grows rapidly, and can overrun native vegetation. Once established, it can quickly take over a site and form an impenetrable thicket. Ailanthus trees also produces toxins that prevent the establishment of other plant species. The root system is aggressive enough to cause damage to sewers and foundations."

It also has a nice stank about it and is very difficult to eradicate.

"You have to cut them down and keep cutting them down for three years to get rid of them," exclaimed Tim Monahan, the president of the Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood Association, over coffee yesterday. Needless to say, he's not a big fan.

But I can't be too hard on the much-maligned trees. After all, I've got a ghetto palm forest in my temporary backyard. I'm trying to blend in and not provoke these aggressive predators, especially after learning "each leaflet has one to several glandular teeth near the base."

Flint Photos: Comber's Market in Civic Park, Late '50s, Early '60s

You remember this sort of winter day in Flint. There are a lot of them every winter. Comber's became Double D Market, then a vacant lot. Now it's an urban forest, a ghetto palm arboretum.

Thank you to Bill Comber for the photo.

Red Foxes Return to Detroit

Need more evidence that Southeast Michigan is reverting back to nature as the human population declines? We've talked about Flint's increasingly scenic urban forests and savannas. And don't forget about the beaver that returned to the Detroit River. Of course there's the legend of the giant wolf, not to mention the Village of Wolves in Flint.

Now comes news that the elusive red fox has returned to Motown. The Seattle Times reports:

Found across all parts of the state, red foxes typically stick close to more rural areas. But Detroit's dwindling population has meant less noise and more places for foxes to hunt rats, mice, voles, pheasants, cotton tail rabbits and even pigeons.

Many neighborhoods have so few remaining houses that adjoining lots resemble small prairies and woodlands, and Detroit's extensive freeway system and old railroad connections linking the inner city to less populated areas are now serving as routes for wildlife.

"As we move out, wildlife moves in," said Matthew Walter, a fox researcher at Antioch University's New England campus in New Hampshire. "Nature heals the cuts that we've made. As long as they can survive there, and as long as they can raise young and if the hunting is good, they will stay there indefinitely."

Just to clarify, the red fox returning to Detroit should not be confused with the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Hills, the last place Jimmy Hoffa was seen alive.

Flint Without Us

The site of the old Double D Market on Dayton Street in Civic Park reverts to forest.

I picked up a copy of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman a few months back. It was surprisingly boring. Yet I found myself thinking about it a lot in Flint. I don't want to overstate this because Flint is definitely alive and kicking, but the city's dwindling population, industrial tax base and housing stock have led to numerous "renaturalized" areas, to use the term being floated by public officials these days.

Here's The New Yorker's brief take on the book:

"Teasing out the consequences of a simple thought experiment—what would happen if the human species were suddenly extinguished—Weisman has written a sort of pop-science ghost story, in which the whole earth is the haunted house. Among the highlights: with pumps not working, the New York City subways would fill with water within days, while weeds and then trees would retake the buckled streets and wild predators would ravage the domesticated dogs. Texas’s unattended petrochemical complexes might ignite, scattering hydrogen cyanide to the winds—a “mini chemical nuclear winter.” After thousands of years, the Chunnel, rubber tires, and more than a billion tons of plastic might remain, but eventually a polymer-eating microbe could evolve, and, with the spectacular return of fish and bird populations, the earth might revert to Eden. "

The grasses thrive and the houses suffer on Paterson Street.

The shrubbery makes a hostile takeover of the abandoned Genesee Bank drive-thru on Welch Blvd.

The backyard ghetto palm forest of an abandoned house in Carriage Town, courtesy of an out-of-state homeowner.

A fence tries unsuccesfully to stop the tide of vegetation near downtown.

The beautiful savannas near Atwood Stadium.

The path back to nature off Grand Traverse, just across the river from downtown.


Protection from grass fires.