A time to plant and a time to uproot

Anya Levy Guyer was at Jamaica Pond this morning when workers began setting up to take down one of the pond's odder, but most beloved trees - the one that had long bent down toward the water, but which began dying late in 2022, a process that accelerated this year as the once narrow split in its trunk grew ever wider and the tree began to pitch itself ever lower into the water.

Last year, somebody put a little notebook and a pencil on a string around the tree for people to record their memories and say goodbye. The notebook quickly filled up, and somebody added another, and then another and another, until, finally, park rangers removed them all.

Despite the split turning into a large hollow in the tree's trunk, it still sprouted leaves this past spring. But unlike during past droughts, when the bottom of the tree's outermost branches stayed well above the water, this year, they just kept getting lower and lower and by the end, remained under the increasingly low pond surface.

The tree in December, 2021, when its branches reflected off some still water on the pond: