There's a lot to love about springtime in Oklahoma. The weather warms up enough so you can enjoy the sun and 20 mph wind on a patio. It's fun to bring the whole family to the Festival of the Arts and enjoy paintings of dogs in martini glasses while you're waiting for the torrential rain to end. There's the excitement of hearing the first tornado siren of the year that isn't at noon on Saturday.
And don't forget how beautiful it looks. Lawns spurt bright green crab grass and clover, and the ragged limbs of trees harried by the previous winter's ice storms begin to bud again. But there are some downsides to the flora here, and the biggest one of all is the acursed Bradford Pear tree.
The name of the tree is a mystery, as it bears no tasty fruit, nor has it ever been a quarterback traded to the Minnesota Vikings for a first round draft pick. What is known about it, however, is that it's the worst tree in the world, and a plague upon Oklahoma. We've always known they were trash, and now we have science to back us up.
From KFOR:
OKLAHOMA CITY - The Bradford Pear tree looks beautiful but smells terrible, and its scent isn't the only reason people are cursing the greenery.
“It was deemed the perfect tree. I mean, it's beautiful in the spring, because it has the flowers and it's contained. It can grow about anywhere in Oklahoma, and then in the fall it has really great colors,” said Mark Bays, urban forestry coordinator for OK Forestry Services.
They're also on a watch list for invasive plants in Oklahoma.That's because, in the last 10 years, the Department of Agriculture started seeing problems with it spreading past its boundaries.
“If you have all of these Bradford Pears growing in close proximity to where other native trees are, they start taking from those resources that those native trees need - water in the soil, nutrients in the soil and then they can start crowding out the other trees that naturally should be there,” Bays said.