By Khalida Sarwari
The stone pine in Blaney Plaza, Saratoga’s beloved and most distinguishable tree, is coming down next week, and it appears that beetles led to its demise.
The tree, which has graced the entrance to Saratoga’s downtown for nearly 100 years, has fallen victim to wood-boring beetles, a condition that certainly wasn’t helped by the drought.
According to city arborist Kate Bear, the condition was discovered in March by another arborist who was assigned by the city to take a look at the tree to determine whether it was suffering from a beetle infestation. The arborist noticed a number of holes of different sizes, which indicated the presence of more than one type of beetle, Bear said.
He was “able to photograph emergent holes throughout the tree from 30 feet and higher in the canopy all the way to the main branches and trunk,” Bear said.
She explained that the beetles lay their eggs just under the bark and when they hatch, the larvae feed on the tissue of the tree, creating tunnels as they eat the wood. As a result, the tunnels cut off the flow of food and water and eventually kill the tree.
Normally, Italian stone pines, considered to be drought tolerant, aren’t susceptible to wood boring beetles, but the prolonged drought disabled the tree from fighting off a beetle population explosion, said Bear.
“The tree is dying because we’ve had years of drought,” she said. “A healthy tree will have sap to force the beetle out, but if there’s less water available the beetle can successfully bore into the tree, and once it gets under the bark it gets compromised.”
The stone pine’s health declined suddenly, Bear said. That’s not surprising, given that the prolonged drought has affected a lot of Saratoga’s trees, including other drought-tolerant types of trees like oaks.
Arborists have not determined what type of beetles or how many types impacted the stone pine. A century old and at the end of its normal life span, the tree is dying and cannot be restored to good health, Bear said.
Last year, a much healthier stone pine was caught in the crossfire of a city project to put in two additional parking spaces. Residents took issue with elements of the project, fearing that the construction work would harm not only the stone pine but also a nearby oak tree.
Bear said the city plans to replace the stone pine with a new large signature tree at Blaney Plaza.
“The idea is to put in another tree to take over the role of one of the city’s landmark trees,” she said.
Saratoga-based Trees 360 Degrees is expected to remove the stone pine on June 11. The removal will result in closure of the spur road during the work, which is expected to last no more than two days. The parking spaces on that road will also be unavailable.
For more information about the tree, visit the city’s website at saratoga.ca.us/stonepine.
