A favorite tree behind the Star office will soon be no more, thanks to a disease affecting beeches that is spread by a newly discovered nematode.
The tree is not ours. It has always been an impressive if unlikely tree, leaning ominously against our utility wires. It had been a fine, leafy giant in good health, but it was at its grandest in winter, when one could make out the patterns of its boughs and branches, repeating like fractals, in ever smaller copies of themselves.
As best as I can tell, the tree is on the property line between the East Hampton Library and a new part-time resident of Dayton Lane’s house lot. Which is good, I suppose, since someone will have to pay to remove it, if it is actually dead.
Beech leaf disease has worked its way east from Ohio over the past 10 years, riding on the backs, so to speak, of nematodes of the genus Litylenchus. It reached Long Island in 2019, Chris Gangemi reported here in June. It was visible in back of The Star as stripes between the veins of the leaves by the time his story appeared. A hot, dry summer was thought to make the disease worse.
The leaves themselves were gone by September, as they were on beeches I could see along the highway and in the Amagansett woods. Some afflicted trees lost only the tops and resprouted branchlets lower on their trunks; the one behind The Star did not.
Researchers began early trying to get ahead of beech leaf disease by cloning trees that appeared to survive the pests that caused it. The idea is to selectively breed a new strain of Litylenchus-resistant trees for replanting efforts across the affected regions.
The library tree’s offspring now line a stockade fence along The Star’s property line. None of these are more than about 20 feet tall, and they appear vigorous enough. But when I look closely I can see the telltale dark bands among the leaves.
First the chestnuts, then the elms, next the black pines, now the beeches. I am left with a feeling of slow-moving tragedy, as the trees around us seem to be telling us that they can no longer keep up with the rapidly changing world we humans are bringing forth. Maybe it is because of the gray and windy day outside, but it is hard to think about them and not become just a little bit morose.