© Danita Delimont/Getty Images/Gallo Images‘The iconic association of palm trees with Los Angeles is a positive, but we’re now in a period where we have a better understanding of what’s needed,’ says a climate expert.
Palm trees greet you outside the LAX airport, they line Hollywood Boulevard, stand guard over the Pacific and crisscross neighbourhoods poor and rich, a botanical army of stems and fronds which symbolise the world's entertainment capital.
Apparently not for much longer. LA's palm trees are dying. And most won't be replaced.
A beetle known as the South American palm weevil and a fungus called Fusarium are killing palm trees across southern California. Others are dying of old age. "It'll change the overall aesthetic because palm trees are so distinctive. It's the look and feel of Los Angeles," said Carol Bornstein, director of the nature gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
A city tally in 1990 estimated the number of palms on city streets at 75,000, a number which has not been updated but is destined to plunge in coming decades, the Los Angeles Times reported this week, citing officials.
No one knows how many will die, or how fast. For palm lovers, the even worse news is that they won't be replaced, perhaps not even mourned.
Comment: There's been a spate of such incidents involving this species over the last 2 months, see also: Three dead beached whale sharks found in Indonesia
Whale shark found washed ashore in Tamil Nadu, India
Dead whale shark washes ashore on beach in Puri, India
Dead whale shark found in Tanza Bay, Philippines
Dead whale shark found in Tamil Nadu, India