And Then There Were Four
Judi Rant
 

The five sentinels of the Key West cemetery fall to the State Exotic Plants policy. Because the stately Washingtonian Palms have been deemed not to have been in Florida when Columbus squidged ashore, the evangelical botanical staff rules them outlaws. (Poincianas also are not native.)

This is the same policy that threatened the Australian pines at Fort Zachary Taylor. These theories of inferior lineage are augmented by warnings that, in the case of the Australian pines, they fall over in storms — the fact that they have been there a documented 40 years or more, notwithstanding.

One of the five landmark Washingtonians has been reduced to a stump. Another is clearly feeling its age and leans as if crippled on the brink of collapse. The remaining three arboreal elders, however, oversee the generations of southernmost souls with dignity and elegance. To think they face their end at the hands of bureaucrats — que lastima!

My personal theory is no one should be allowed to cut down a tree that is older than they are.

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