It's hard to be a tree

There was a lovely mature Palo Verde tree here earlier today. Now an irrigation tube is all that remains.

Palo Verde trees are well adapted to the hot dry desert. They have tiny leaves and bright green bark. The small leaves reduce moisture loss and the green bark allows photosynthesis there too. Sadly, their crowns grow large which makes them vulnerable to our frequent and violent winds.

The tree which stood in this space lost a large limb - a third of its size - about two weeks ago, and another similarly-sized chunk fell to earth sometime last night. That was apparently the end of the line, because our landscape crew cleaned up the broken bit and wheechled the rest of it out of there this morning. I was surprised that even the stump was gone by lunch-time.

In the words of the immortal Kermit: "it's not easy being green"