SHOULD WE HAVE AN "ADOPT A TREE" PROGRAM HERE?

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Gene Fernandez, director of his South Texas Center for Historical and Genealogical Research, has been one of the few local historians who has  supported the reforestation of the banks of local waterways with the magnificent Montezuma Cypress.

He is leading the effort to reforest the city with these unique trees and encourages residents to landscape their properties and vacant lots near water with the species. Plains Capital Bank at the corner of Old Port Isabel and Price roads landscaped their property with the trees, carving out hollows which are then flooded to provide them with a water source, a necessary requirement for their growth.

Its botanical name is Taxodium mucronatum, and also known as Montezuma bald cypress, Montezuma cypress, sabino, or ahuehuete. It is a species of Taxodium that is native to Mexico. Ahuehuete is derived from the Nahuatl name for the tree, āhuēhuētl, which means "upright drum in water" or "old man of the water."

Another avid supporter of the magnificent trees has been former City of Brownsville mayor Pat Ahumada.

Ahumada sent us this photo of this splendid cypress that is located behind his daughter's house on 55 Jacaranda Street in the Rio Viejo subdivision. 

The former mayor started a move to preserve old trees like that one and requested $100,000 to establish a beautification program back in 1991, but was turned down.

"People thought I was crazy, but many people thought it was  great and started trying to save them back then," Ahumada said. 

It is unknown how old the tree is, but is doubtless one of the largest trees of its kind. At one time, cypress trees lined the resacas across the city and upriver into the upper valley, but urbanization and commercial and subdivision development led to their demise, save for this one and a few scattered around undeveloped resacas, plus the grove located at La Posada Montezuma Cypress Preserve near the old  Jagou Plantation on Posada Street. (Right)

No one knows how long they've been around, said city commissioner Nurith Galonsky, who was kind enough to send us these photos a few months back. Fernandez has also addressed the city commission expressing concern that some of those trees in the reserve were dying.

There is another fine example of the Champion Coma at the Resaca de la Palma Battlefield. (Left)

The recent moves by Fernandez to preserve the noble trees is nothing new. Back in the 1920's, crews undertook a cypress planting program. 

The cypresses were planted along the resacas and carried on by the Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)) during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

At that time Filmer Park, more recently called Lincoln Park, was lined with all kinds of rare trees. They were planted by the expressway. Then the city started cutting down the trees at the other end by 6th street. The neighborhood witnessed the cutting down of the trees and said, ‘no, you can’t do that.’ They marched on city hall and saved about three trees.

At one time, cypresses extended all the way from just about the mouth of the river up to Roma. During the steamboat times those trees were cut down in order to supply the steamboats with the wood in order to fire their boilers. 

But time marched on and with it came an end to the park as the US 77/83 Expressway was expanded to connect with Los Tomates Bridge in the late 1990s leaving behind only three of the cypresses.

On Oct. 26, 2021, a TxDOT ground crew working in the old Lincoln Park, now a TxDOT right of way under the elevated US 83/77 Expressway, pruned two of the hundred-year-old Montezuma cypress trees that grew in between the main lanes.

Fernandez learned that the crews had not only pruned the old trees, but that they had chained the branches to a truck and literally tore the limbs from his old friends.

The trees had been over-pruned to the extent that almost nothing remained of their former leafy crowns. Fernandez was horrified, not only at the loss of the trees themselves, but for the loss they represented to the history of Brownsville.

Fernandez reached out to the city and crafted an online petition to send out to his 1,500 followers collecting signatures that could then be presented to TxDOT to get reparations. City municipal code requires an assessment from the city forester to remove major trees of importance, according to Fernandez.

Never one to air a problem without a solution, Fernandez proposed that TxDOT purchase 12 Montezuma cypress trees from a nursery in Harlingen. Two trees could be planted to replace the ones lost, while the others would be placed on vistas around Brownsville for the public.

Then each tree could be adopted by one of Fernandez’s followers and watched over for a year until established enough to survive.

In late December TxDOT agreed with the plan.

 

Other old-growth trees like the pecan and a tall ebony tree are growing in the Stillman House yard, but no one seems to know if they were already there when the house was built or were planted later.

Because hurricanes and  windstorms are frequent to Brownsville, some of the oldest trees may have been blown down in the past. Others, unfortunately, have been cut down as a result of urban growth or property owners building on their lots.

"I told a friend who told me he was cutting a tree that he was depleting my oxygen," Ahumada said recently. "Those are important trees. "

Imagine the city would look like without the familiar mesquites,  ebony, pecan, Mexican Olives and Sabal Palms and the shade and fragrance and aesthetics they give the city – not to mention the oxygen – they provide. 

Even individual property owners have reduced the number of old-growth trees in the city. The section of ebony stump below was picked up from an alley by the owners of Electric Fixture and Supply, at 1125 E Jefferson St. after nearby home owners had it cut down to build an addition to their home.

It alone is about four and a half feet tall and close to that in width. One can just imagine the diversity of life that lived in its branches and limbs.

It would be tragic if old-growth trees like that are cut down indiscriminately across the city. Hopefully, after a city wide inventory is completed, we will have a better idea of what comprises this great natural resource.