An Invasive Pest Stalking Seattle's Shade Trees
Millions of eggs have been discovered on poplar and maple trees, threatening to decimate the city’s urban canopy.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The shade trees of Seattle, especially on Third street, between Columbia and Madison, are badly infested with the woolly maple bark louse—or rather, they will be when the millions of eggs now on the bark hatch out. The poplars—both Lombardy and silver leaf—will be greatly afflicted. If the owners of the trees will look upon the bark they will see a brown, circular, leathery scale about one-quarter of an inch in diameter, beneath which is a peculiar fluffy cottony mass. There may be found in each of these masses 700 to 1,000 small white, spherical eggs. In a few days these eggs will hatch into young lice, which will scatter over the trees, wandering about on the twigs and leaves for a few days and finally fixing themselves upon the lower leaf surface to insert their beaks and suck out the sap. The eggs are so readily detected that owners of trees cannot be excused if they neglect to wash them off.
“There may be found in each of these masses 700 to 1,000 small white, spherical eggs.”
This 1892 report highlights the perpetual struggle of maintaining Seattle's urban forest against invasive pests. Just as homeowners were urged to protect their maples and poplars then, the city today continues to grapple with biosecurity threats like the emerald ash borer, reminding us that a healthy canopy requires constant vigilance.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.