"Farewell to the giant!" says San Francisco's Rec & Parks Department, after announcing the demise of a 100-year-old, 90-foot cypress tree in Hellman Hollow, the enormous trunk of which had recently split, creating a dangerous situation.

"Tomorrow we say goodbye to an old friend, a 90-ft cypress on the eastern edge of Hellman Hollow, whose towering trunk finally split after standing strong for more than a century," the department says in a Facebook post. "From the Roaring 20s to the Summer of Love to this month’s Hardly Strictly, its branches shaded generations of San Franciscans."

There are, of course, naysayers on Facebook who don't approve of the tree's removal, with one insisting, "The tree can heal from this." But given its location in the middle of a popular meadow in the park, which becomes crowded with people at multiple times of year, including during Oustide Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, it hardly seems wise for a city agency to take any chances with the tree's structural integrity.

Rec & Parks assures us the tree will be recycled, though.

"Though it can no longer stand, its story isn’t over. Its wood will be repurposed in our nature exploration areas, where it will continue to bring joy," the department says. Hopefully that doesn't mean it will all end up as mulch.

The tree is an example of a Monterey cypress, one of thousands that stand in Golden Gate Park, along with many Monterey pines — both of which thrive in sandy soils. The species was chosen by landscape designer Frederick Law Olmstead in his design for Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery, and recommended for Golden Gate Park in his early proposals for it, noting its resilience to coastal conditions. (The Chronicle suggests the species was the selection of William Hammond Hall, the park's first superintendent, but we'll need to check the receipts on this.)

The species can live upwards of 200 years, however its lifespan is typically shortened by the harshness of the weather and its closeness to the coast. And as we learned during the harsh winter of 2023, Monterey cypress have an average "failure point," in which trunks split or large branches come off, of 66 years. The towering specimens in Alamo Square Park were planted around 1860, and are therefore over 160 years old.

Golden Gate Park was primarily sand dunes prior to its construction, and many of the earliest planted trees — the park opened in 1870 — are now around 155 years old.

Below, a sunset photo of the Hellman Hollow tree from a few weeks ago, posted to Facebook by Jennifer Cee.

Thursday morning’s inclement weather brought down a tree at Mission and 11th Streets, and that tree pulled some Muni lines and a light pole down with it.

The Thursday morning downpours we just experienced were not terribly disruptive, and really just normal December weather. Truckee and the Sierra Mountain areas are having far more serious weather-related discombobulation. But you try telling that to this poor ficus tree that got knocked down Thursday morning, which also dragged a light pole and some Muni lines down with it.

The tree fell sometime around 9 a.m. Thursday morning, and the 14/14-R and 9/9-R Muni lines were being rerouted for several hours.

“Our Bureau of Urban Forestry crews responded quickly today to a downed tree on Mission St. at 11th St. that downed overhead Muni lines & a light pole. No injuries,” Public Works said in the early Thursday afternoon tweet above. “See another storm-related problem? Please contact @SF311.”

If you can’t get enough storm porn, then also enjoy the video above of the same tree, taken before crews were able to respond.

As of 11:45 a.m. Thursday, SFMTA said that “IB 14/14R reroutes expected to remain in place for several hours for tree removal and overhead line repair.”

Related: Tree Comes Crashing Down in Japantown During Early Morning Storms [SFist]

Image: @sfpublicworks via Twitter

If you haven't yet gotten the chance to explore the expansive collection of trees and plants on the rooftop of the Transbay Transit Center (a.k.a. Salesforce Park at the Salesforce Transit Center), you now have the chance to do so again.

The building and park reopened last month, complete with the gondola/funicular thing that was not operating last year when the Transit Center originally opened. And local tree expert Mike Sullivan, author of the guidebook The Trees of San Francisco, says he realized "there was something special going on" up in Salesforce Park when he spotted a monkey puzzle tree from the street.

He tells Hoodline it drew him up to the park immediately and to speak with landscape architect Adam Greenspan, who led the design for the park. Greenspan explained how he created this miniature version of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, complete with Chilean, South African, and Mediterranean sections, as well as a "Fog and Wind Garden," and a "Cloud Forest."

Calling this park "the best collection of plants in San Francisco outside of the Botanical Garden," Sullivan has created a self-guided walking tour on his blog, which delves into some detail about the varieties of palm trees you'll find ("a ten-car pileup of different species"); Bay Area native trees like the California buckeye (Aesculus californica), strawberry trees (Arbutus X Marina), and California sycamores (Platanus racemosa ‘Roberts’); and rarities from across the oceans like the Queensland bottle trees (Brachychiton rupestris); and a Wollemi pine from Australia, of which Sullivan says there are fewer than 100 specimens alive in the wild.

After taking that tour with Sullivan's guide, you could also grab his book and do a tour of the city at large, which is home to plethora of beautiful tree specimens that he will point you to — like the New Zealand Christmas Tree at 17th and Stanyan that hit peak bloom in June.

You can also follow him on Instagram here.

Three people were injured, one severely, after two drivers passing through Golden Gate Park lost control and slammed into some nearby trees.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the crash occurred at 7:26 p.m. Wednesday, near where Crossover Drive meets with Park Presidio Boulevard. Tweets from the San Francisco Fire Department, however, place the crash closer to the entrance of the park, at Lincoln Way and 19th Avenue (which becomes Crossover as it enters the park). Both agencies have been contacted by SFist to clarify the wreck's location, and we'll update when we hear back.

According to the SFPD, the drivers of two cars "lost control and crashed into trees." The wreck was so severe, the SFFD says, that one of the victims of the wreck required "extensive extrication" from the damaged vehicle, an operation that wasn't concluded until 10 p.m.

Both drivers and one passenger were transported to the hospital, police say. Two of the victims, a 17-year-old male and a 24-year-old man, underwent injuries police say were not life-threatening. The subject of the SFFD extrication effort, a male of unknown age, suffered life-threatening injuries and was last reported as in critical condition.

As of publication time, an update on his condition or the circumstances of the crash were not available.

Wednesday night's crash was the second major wreck in Golden Gate Park that day: According to Hoodline, a multi-vehicle collision on Kezar Drive near JFK Drive occurred at around 8:20 a.m. Wednesday.

In that case, the crash "was a collision between two northbound cars and one southbound car that crossed into the oncoming lane" after which "several people were transported to a hospital." Additional details on that crash were not available as of Thursday morning.

Related: Driver Smashes Into Glen Park House, Displacing Two And Causing 'Funny Smell'

Before 2011, the exact location of the Grove of Titans — a cluster of incredibly old, incredibly massive California redwoods, some 26 feet in diameter — was a mystery. But thanks to some internet sleuths, the location of the grove in uppermost Northern California is now well-publicized, and as a result, the grove now faces a threat that many park rangers feared would someday come: a crush of tourists.

According to a New York Times story on the grove, hikers would come and visit the Grove of Titans, near Crescent City, and in doing so they would walk on the soil that rested atop the redwoods' delicate roots. This threatens the trees, as the soil becomes more and more compacted as more and more hikers pass through the area.

To protect the roots and the forest floor, park rangers are hoping to raise $1.4 million to construct a Muir Woods-style wooden boardwalk that would allow tourists to walk through the grove without doing this trampling. Unfortunately, the Times reports that state funding is slow in coming, and much of the fundraising is being done by the Redwood Parks Conservancy, a non-profit.

Similar walkways have been established around other gigantic redwoods, including "The Big Tree" in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. There, a platform wraps around a tall redwood, allowing visitors to completely around it without adversely affecting the soil.

How tourists came to discover the Grove of Titans is an interesting story, as well. The way the New York Times tells it, a book about "tall tree hunters" left behind some clues as to the grove's location. It was known that the grove was located in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, but an exact location was never given and no marked trail leads you there. Once the internet got on the case though, it was only a matter of time until that secret came to light.

One supervising ranger, Brett Silver, says he's mystified as to why people want to come to that particular grove. He told the New York Times, "There are just as impressive trees on other trails in the park. That’s my thing." But then he goes on to hazard a guess as to why, saying, "But those trees don’t have names. I mean, Grove of Titans, that’s an impressive name."

Related: One Woman's Campaign To Landmark A Redwood Tree On Lombard Street Ends In Triumph

During an initiation for the California State University, Chico chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, popped collar marketing majors allegedly chopped down (a.k.a. murdered) 32 trees in Lassen National Forest this past April. According to ABC 7, the United States Forest Service has filed criminal charges against the fraternity, namely chapter president Evan Jossey.

ABC also reports that the big wigs at Pi Kappa Alpha have suspended the chapter "pending the outcome of the federal investigation." Oooohhhhhhhh.

According to his Facebook page, Jossey is originally from the Bay Area town of Pleasant Hill. Jossey's FB includes several photos of the Pi Kaps (I'm assuming this is what they are called. I was a virgin in college.) It appears the fraternity's motto is "Scholars, Leaders, Athletes, Gentlemen."

Nowhere does it mention lumberjacks. Also, "scholars" at Chico. LOL.

The Chico chapter of the Pi Kaps doesn't have a frat house, at least according to KPIX 5. Maybe they were trying to build one. The fraternity men deny the claims on their Facebook page, offering the following:

The Lambda Psi Chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity denies the accusations of vandalism at a national forest. The Chapter has filed a police report regarding the individual making these claims. Additionally, we are cooperating with authorities in their investigation. We have concerns for the safety of our members after receiving threats against Chapter following this accusation and have notified the local police regarding these threats.

They filed a police report agains the person who told on them? Also according to their Facebook, the men of Pi Kappa Alpha raise money for Girls on the Run, "a non-profit organization who's goal is to educate young women on a healthy lifestyle."

Of all the things these frat boys could raise money for, they chose to help chicks stay bang-able. (No shade to Girls on the Run. Get it girls!)

Jossey is second from the left. In the pastel plaid tie. (Facebook)

KRON 4 reports that this is the second time a bunch of "Southern Charm" cast wannabes have destroyed part of a California park. A year ago, approximately 1,000 University of Oregon fraternity and sorority members left a half-mile trail of trash around Lake Shasta.

The men of Chico's Pi Kappa Alpha deny the charges. The 32 affected trees were unavailable for comment because they are dead forever.

Related: UC Berkeley Fraternity, Sorority Parties On Hold Following Reports Of Sexual Assault

If you're relatively new to the Bay Area, and particularly if you've never lived or spent much time in the East Bay, it will be news to you that a great many people passionately despise the eucalyptus trees that are clustered throughout the Oakland and Berkeley hills, and around the UC Berkeley campus. The bath-shop-scented, stripe-barked, tall beauties, technically called Tasmanian blue gum trees, have elongated leaves that create a pleasant hushed rustling in the breeze. But they are not native to the Bay Area, and they've long been pointed to as a primary culprit in the Oakland Hills Fire of 1991. Many people still love them, have tied themselves naked to their trunks to protect them, and they deny that they have any special flammability and see them as vital habitat for birds and other species. These eucalyptus lovers also don't think that whatever could be planted to replace them will be any less of a fire hazard in what is already a fire-prone region.

The Chronicle's East Bay columnist Chip Johnson came down on the side of "chop them all down" in a 2015 column about the trees, arguing that "human life tops the list" of things we should be worried about preserving. At the time, a project was set to begin with the help of a $4.6 million federal grant to thin the forest along a 20-mile stretch of the East Bay ridgeline, cutting down eucalyptus trees along with diseased or dying Monterey pines and other non-native species.

Johnson quotes a UC Berkeley professor of fire sciences, Scott Stephens, who says the eucalyptus trees are absolutely a hazard even if they aren't close by. He points to the university's effort to clear trees on the upper slopes surrounding the campus because the trees can burn at such high intensity that they can deposit embers more than a mile downslope from them. "Given the conditions of the hills and the vulnerabilities of the people living in the area, it’s the right thing to do," Stephens said, "and the next time we get a great, big fire, we’re going to be happy that we did this."

Shortly after this piece was published and the work was to begin, lawsuits were filed, including one by the Hills Conservation Network to stop the "deforestation" that succeeded in cutting off FEMA funds for tree removal, and the group Save the East Bay Hills launched a website that calls the "thinning" plan a campaign of misinformation, and that FEMA has had plans to clearcut the forests and remove 400,000 trees.

The group argues also that the chopping down of all those trees will actually increase rather than decrease the fire risk in the area. "The plan will not eliminate fire 'fuel load' but instead render it highly flammable," they write. "Healthy, moisture-rich, fire-resistant trees are to be chopped down and chipped, their remains spread about sun-scorched hillsides at a depth of up to two feet, creating carpets of dried out tinder throughout the hills."

The Atlantic delved into this decades-long debate last fall, noting with some amusement, "It is a classic Bay Area dispute: greens vs. greens, experts vs. experts, and committed amateurs vs. committed amateurs."

Also in the fray are people who argue that the fire issue should be set aside, and the trees should be removed because they're not only reaching the end of their natural lives, but the oak-and-grassland ecosystem that predated their presence in the hills should be restored. In that camp sits native plant enthusiast Jake Sigg, who writes this newsletter/blog about issues surrounding SF parks and open spaces. Sigg says he loves the blue gum species and thinks they can be just fine in well-irrigated parks, but not untended in the East Bay Hills.

Even a fire ecologist at the University of Tasmania, where the trees are native, is torn about whether the trees have evolved to be encouragers of fire, or just to withstand fire themselves. He tells the magazine Bay Nature that there's a semi-compelling theory that eucalyptus species evolved "to burn their neighbors," and like some other tree species, eucalyptus trees tolerate fire very well, and rejuvenate quickly.

As of last month, according to Save the East Bay Hills, the City of Oakland's Vegetation Management Department is now conducting an environmental assessment to prepare for the cutting down of some of these trees.

Meanwhile, with those FEMA funds now relegated only to bush clearing, the East Bay Regional Park District is using other funds at its disposal to move forward with tree cutting, but it's unclear how much they've completed thus far. And Oakland's Vegetation Management team will be taking public comment on their plan and Environmental Impact Report to manage trees and vegetation on city-owned lands, with regard to fire safety, and that should be no-doubt lively. Save the East Bay Hills is already saying "the process may be a sham heading to a predetermined conclusion of deforestation."

If you want to keep up with the latest, or join in with your own thoughts, you can follow the pro-tree activists on Facebook, or follow the anti-eucalyptus faction among the local Sierra Club. A video produced by the Sierra Club on the topic of the East Bay hills is below.

Longtime San Francisco resident Meri Jaye, 96, has been squabbling with her neighbors over the fate of a 100-foot-tall redwood tree that she planted next her house along Lombard Street in 1962. These neighbors say they're concerned about the tree's branches falling and hurting their children, or the tree itself falling over, but Jaye has dismissed these claims, saying that the tree is healthy and is likely to live for another thousand years, or more. On Friday, Jaye won her fight to get the city's Urban Forestry Council to grant landmark status to the 55-year-old tree, and she dropped a zinger to ABC 7 on the way out of the meeting, regarding the neighbors who have been fighting against her, "They were newcomers. Probably from out of state and do not know the redwood forest."

Jaye planted the tree as a sapling in 1962 as a memorial for her husband and two children, who all died in a tragic airplane accident. As the Peninsula Press recounts, Jaye said during the initial hearing over the tree in October, "My husband proposed marriage to me in Muir Woods. When I lost my husband and my children, I wanted a memorial that would mean the strength that I needed to carry on."

Jaye has lived in her home at 4 Montclair Terrace, just off Lombard, all these years, and has watched the tree grow into the towering thing it is now. And when she went to apply for landmark status for it last fall — something that only 18 other trees in the city have — she was quickly opposed by two neighborhood groups, the Montclair Terrace Association and the Lombard Hill Improvement Association.

Neighbor Heidi Bioski reportedly gave tearful testimony at the October hearing, citing the case of the woman who was permanently paralyzed when a 100-pound tree branch fell on her in Washington Square Park last August. Bioski said, per the Peninsula Press, "The branches are huge and if the branches were to fall on my child is that worth it? Is that worth anything? I don’t know why we would look to preserve a tree over a child."

Jaye dismisses all this saying that all the neighbors knew about the tree when they moved into the neighborhood, and mostly they're just fighting because they want their views to be less obstructed.

The Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to landmark the tree, which, if approved by the Board of Supervisors, will make it illegal to alter or cut down the tree in the future.

Now Jaye and her neighbors can go back to fighting for a cause they can all agree on: getting rid of the tourists driving down Lombard's crooked section. It's something Jaye has been advocating for decades, as evidenced by this 1987 New York Times article in which she was quoted, saying, "This has become a carnival, a Coney Island, rather than a neighborhood where we can welcome all the visitors.''

Previously: It Took Nine People And $110K To Come Up With Toll Idea For Lombard Street

It's cherry blossom season here in Northern California, just as it is in Washington D.C. and elsewhere where the trees are plentiful. And because of San Francisco's long ties with Japan, and the city being home to one of only three remaining Japantowns in the country, we have the biggest cherry blossom festival in the U.S. outside of D.C., which will be happening April 8 to 16. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco festival, which began in 1968, and it will be marked with a gala, black-tie celebration on the night of April 14 at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square.

In Japanese culture, flowering cherry trees symbolize the ephemeral, and cherry blossoms planted in parks mark the beginning of spring and figure centrally in the traditional celebration of Hanami — usually marked with drunken picnics underneath the trees as they hit their peak.

But you don't have to wait for the Japantown festivities to see the trees in bloom since, since they're actually planted in multiple places, including around the Japanese Tea Garden and elsewhere in Golden Gate Park, where they are already hitting peak bloom.

The most common variety you'll see, which is the most popular in Japan, is Prunus x yedoensis or Yoshino cherry, which produces delicate, five-petaled white flowers. There are other cultivars with pink blossoms and many more petals, but typically if you see one blooming on a San Francisco street it is a sterile tree, and will not produce fruit — all the better for keeping sidewalks clean.

And these lovely flowering gems shouldn't be confused with flowering plum trees, as the SF Trees blog explains, which have pink flowers and bloom about a month earlier, in February, around Alamo Square, Cole Valley, the Castro, and elsewhere.

Also, if you're interested in the many other flowering trees on our city streets, or just trees in general, you should check out that SF Trees blog by local tree lover Michael Sullivan, who also has a book and has served as a board member of Friends of the Urban Forest for many years.

Photo: torbakhopper

Heavy winds and rain that reportedly brought down more than 350 trees in San Francisco arrived months too early for some homeowners, who will likely have to foot the bill for tree removals. Although the city is set to transfer tree maintenance duties and financial responsibilities back to the Department of Public Works after the passage of Proposition E, which secured 80 percent of the vote in November, that won't go into effect until July, CBS 5 observes.

For now, the old rules still apply: “If it’s a privately maintained tree, if it’s under their jurisdiction now, they have the responsibility," DPW spokesperson Rachel Gordon told the news channel. "They will be the ones who will be taking care of it."

And there's lot to take care of: "The ground has gotten saturated," Gordon explains, "That means the roots don’t have as much to hold onto as they did before. And you bring in the gusty winds and that really spells trouble for trees that might be vulnerable.”

Prop E, a move to reverse the city's decision of 2011 to foist arbor upkeep and replacement duties on property owners, was universally popular among local politicians — it doesn't raise taxes, but it does mandate a nearly $20 million set-aside. That, the Chronicle warned in recommending voters reject the measure, could prove problematic, and the city "could trap itself if greater needs emerge or revenue shrinks in a bad year." In fact, tree maintenance duties were given over to homeowners in the wake of budget cuts a couple of years back.

The first priority of DPW is to clear sidewalks and streets and ensure they're safe for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. “If a large limb or a tree comes down, we prioritize them — where are they potentially endangering people or property,” Gordon said. She assures homeowners they won't receive fees for minor work that doesn't involve an arborist, but for other instances the city will be keeping tabs of expenses and, when appropriate, billing property owners. “We will start getting our bookkeepers on that one," Gordon tells CBS 5, "It’s a lot of overtime. People have been working long shifts, again we’ve been bringing in extra crews."

Previously: Storm Took Down 350+ Trees In SF; Tahoe Travelers Told To Wait Until Friday

Albino redwoods — ghastly pale, stunted versions of the famous tree species that aren't "red" (or even green) at all but instead nearly white —  have left arborists scratching their heads since they were first documented in 1866. That is — perhaps! — until now: The San Jose Mercury News has a report on the work of Zane Moore, a UC Davis Doctoral student, who has come to a compelling conclusion about the plants after analyzing albino redwood needles. At odds with preexisting ideas about the white trees, sometimes called "ghosts of the forest," Moore believes the trees could be making a positive contribution to their more verdant siblings.

The albino redwoods, which grow out of otherwise healthy redwoods, lack color due to a genetic mutation. They have no chlorophyll, the pigment that makes plants green and helps them photosynthesize. As many as 400 of them exist in California, the most of them in Santa Cruz. But rather than leaching the strength of healthy redwoods, albino redwoods might instead be absorbing toxins, pulling them out of the soil and helping other redwoods in so doing. “They are basically poisoning themselves,” Moore suggests to the Mercury News, “They are like a liver or kidney that is filtering toxins.”

“Albino redwoods are parasites," says Emily Burns, director of science at Save the Redwoods League in San Francisco, "and if these sprouts have some sort of a function, that’s really cool.”

Dave Kuty, a docent at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park who assisted Moore, puts it this way: “Maybe the albinos are acting like a sponge — to get the bad stuff out of the soil and the plants... That’s a possibility, but we need to do more research.” If it turns at that their hypothesis is correct, perhaps albino redwoods might be cloned and used to clean up waste sites.

Moore will present research at the Coast Redwood Science Symposium in Eureka this week. "With its limited range and high value, the coast redwood forest is a microcosm of many of the emerging science and management issues facing today’s forested landscape," a description of that symposium explains. "As new information is collected and new management approaches and treatments tried, it is critical that policies and strategies guiding use and management within the redwood region be reviewed and updated based on objective scientific information."

Related: To Save A 100-Foot Tree, Inner Richmond Couple Consults Planning Commission (And A Shaman)

Under San Francisco's current street tree policy, having a tree in front of your building can be costly. With some exceptions, the property owner is responsible for care and maintenance of the tree on top of being liable for any damage it causes — regardless of whether the property owner planted it in the first place. According to a morning press release, Supervisor Scott Wiener, with the backing of Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF), intends to introduce a ballot measure that would change this policy — passing the responsibility of tree maintenance to the city.

“Right now, more than 6,000 sidewalks in San Francisco are in need of repair because of damage caused by tree roots,” explained the Executive Director of the Friends of the Urban Forest, Dan Flanagan. “It's unacceptable that the City expects homeowners to be responsible for street trees and liable for tree-related sidewalk falls. San Francisco should maintain its street trees and sidewalks like other cities do, and that's what this measure will accomplish."

The ballot measure requires support from two-thirds of the Board of Supervisors for it to go on the November ballot, and the board has until the end of July to vote on it.

The measure is (perhaps obviously) supported by property owners in the city, who may balk at high costs associated with street-tree maintenance. “We need to fix the City's broken policy of requiring property owners to take care of street trees in front of their properties and pay for any damage they cause,” the President of Small Property Owners of San Francisco, said Noni Richen, argued. “This measure will ensure proper maintenance of these street trees without unfairly burdening certain property owners just because they have a tree in front of their property."

If approved, the cost of tree maintenance would be covered by $8 million a year from the general fund and a parcel tax that is expected to raise and additional $10.8 million annually.

According to the press release, San Francisco has around 105,000 street trees (Friends of the Urban Forest has a cool interactive map of many of them). At present, one-third of them are maintained by the city. If the measure makes it to November's ballot, and the voters pass it, the city will be responsible for all 105,000.

Related: City Decides To Take Care of Trees, Add More Greenery

As the June election approaches, so does the time of election mailings, campaign fliers, and voter information packets. All that stuff appearing in your mailbox (or hanging from your door) can be infuriating, we know. But you can opt out of a fraction of it (just not the fraction you might prefer)!

Though there have been efforts (the most recent one we can recall was in 2014) to allow San Francisco residents to opt out of mailings from campaigns, worries about First Amendment right tussles likely prevented them from moving forward. So, per our survey from that year, 73.21% of you take those mailings straight "from mailbox to recycling bin, no stops in between."

But what about your voter information pamphlet? While many likely enjoy having the paper copy in hand, receiving that oft-substantial booklet by mail is by no means mandatory. In fact, the Department of Elections encourages you to "Save Paper! Get Your Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot Online!" on their very website.

You can, they say, read everything that would be in the pamphlet online, and if you decide you miss the paper version, you can always restart print delivery "at least 50 days prior to an election."

The deadline to opt out of getting the pamphlet for the June 7, 2016 election is April 18 — opt out after that, and you'll be un-enrolled for the following election.

You can see the DoE's FAQ on ending print delivery here, opt in or out here, and see all the June 7 election information here. Then sit back and bask in the glow of self-righteousness! Sure, the average election might kill over 1400 worth of trees in campaign mailings, but you just saved a couple by getting your voter intel online. Good work!

Previously: Just How Many Trees Have Died For This Year's Election Mailers?
Do You Bother To Read All Those Campaign Mailings?

[h/t ABC 7]

At 46 Cook Street, a tall tree of 100 years old and as many feet high is at the center of an Inner Richmond neighborhood feud, because of course it is.

The Chronicle writes that the ancient tree, a pine species experts are unable to agree upon, is endangered by a newish property owner (yes, the Chronicle points out he is a tech consultant, so do with that whatever you will I guess they mean) who has already removed two palms and one similar pine from his yard in April, though it's unclear why.

The problem is that a family previously living in a carriage house in the back yard on the property have been crying foul, speaking up for the remaining tree. “It’s like the tree has no representative,” Richards, said, none too subtly channelling his inner Lorax. “It can’t say, ‘Hey, don’t cut me down, I’m historic.’ I was the advocate for the tree.”

That advocacy has so far included calling on help from neighbors and securing an initial 90-day restraining order from the PUC prohibiting it from being cut down. “These trees have been an important part of the landscape of the street and the history of the entire property," one nearby neighbor and longtime neighborhood dweller said. “They are beautiful trees. They tower over all our gardens. The birds constantly sing.”

That was in June, and the tree is still standing. The Planning Commissioner agreed to help nominate the pine for landmark status, which is held by just 16 trees in the city currently. Cutting down a landmark tree can result in jail time.

The question of its landmark candidacy is twofold. Is the tree itself a common species? It could be a Cook Pine, and in that case, no, it would be rare. But it could also be a common Norfolk Pine. Also, it's been said that the tree was planted historically by a director of the Odd Fellows society after he brought it from the Lone Mountain Cemetery — as you can see on this map from the 1870's, the Inner Richmond was all cemeteries at one point, with the Odd Fellows and Masons each having their own.

The Planning Commission then voted to recommend landmarking the tree, but ultimately the Urban Forestry Council, which was called upon to make a final decision, found itself deadlocked. After another restraining order and a rebuff from the Board of Supervisors, the tree's fate is uncertain.

The couple in the carriage house, however, have since left the property after a payout of tens of thousands of dollars. They can no longer advocate on behalf of the tree according to the terms of that original agreement. But that didn't stop them from consulting a shaman in Indonesia — looks like they really did get some money — who told them there are not one but multiple spirits living in the tree.

Multiple! Where will they go? Who will speak for them?

Update: A follow up from the Chronicle holds good news for the tree spirits, if not for the wishes of the property owner. In a 9 to 2 vote, the Urban Forestry Council granted the tree landmark status for its physical attributes and relative rarity.

Council member Michael Sullivan was one of several who changed his no vote to a yes, but added that the council doesn't want to set too strong a precedent going forward. "In general, I think we ought to defer to property owners when a tree is in the backyard. I think we have to be really rigorous about ... not landmarking every large tree that comes before us even if it tugs at our heartstrings,” he said.

2016's hottest Halloween costume? #ManInTree pic.twitter.com/J7WkoejwTG

— Austin Santiago (@AuzSantiago) March 23, 2016

Have you been following the #ManInTree ordeal? At some point yesterday morning, the above pictured man climbed the iconic 80-foot sequoia tree located in front of a downtown Seattle Macy's store and posted up. Police, fearing the man was suicidal, quickly shut down the streets surrounding the tree, and attempted to talk him down. He seemed to be, well, upset about something. Now, more than 24 hours later, the Seattle Times is reporting that the unidentified 28-year-old man has finally climbed down.

According to the Seattle Police Department, officers received reports of a man perched atop the tree shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday. "During early attempts to contact the man, who appears to be suffering from a crisis, he threw an apple, branches, pine cones and other items at officers on the street below, and claimed to be armed with a knife," reads the police statement.

And so up in the tree he remained, all through the night and into the morning — his internet popularity, fueled in part by a (amazing, we might add) livestream of the ordeal by local station KOMO, growing the entire time.

The punny SPD Twitter account didn't really help things, either.

Even The New York Times apparently tuned in to the livestream at one point this morning, transcribing the early morning musings of KOMO broadcaster Theron Zahn.

Is there a metaphor in all of this? Like, the rest of us, in our own way, would like to climb a tree and be left alone? That’s what I think. Maybe all of us, in our own lives, with the stress of the world and everything, you just want to go up in a tree and hang out with the birds, and not be bothered.

According to Alison Grande, a reporter with Seattle's KIRO-TV, the Seattle Police Department does not plan to arrest the man following the completion of a mental health evaluation.

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