Members of the West University neighborhood will gather Saturday afternoon to bid goodbye to an elderly and shady resident.
A 100-year-old Bigleaf maple, located on the corner of East 13th Avenue and Mill Street, is scheduled to be removed from the neighborhood on Monday.
The tree is known as the Lemon Tree in honor of Charlotte Lemon, a founding member of the West University Neighbors Association (WUN) who lived in a house behind the tree for 92 years.
Residents will gather at 1280 Mill St. on Saturday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to bid the tree farewell and to share food, stories and photographs about the neighborhood.
Drix Rixmann, WUN secretary and neighborhood resident, said he lived across the street from the tree for almost eight years and once nominated it for special city recognition.
“It’s a cool-looking tree,” Rixmann said. “It twists like they do; the branches are just extending. It looks like a storybook tree that’s going to reach down and hug you.”
The city’s Urban Forestry program marked the tree for removal this summer when employees who studied the tree indicated that less than 30 percent its wood was sound, said Urban Forester Mark Snyder.
Rixmann said he asked the city to delay removing the tree until people could get together and discuss it. He talked with several tree experts in Eugene about the tree, and all suggested that it is not worth preserving, he said.
Alby Thoumsin, president of the Eugene Tree Foundation, suggested that residents should honor the tree and its history by planting a new tree in its place, Rixmann said.
“With that kind of thinking, you just can’t help but feel OK about it, so that’s why we figured we would make this ceremony,” Rixmann said.
Thoumsin said Bigleaf maples live an average of 80 to 90 years. But the tree’s age and damages from old road improvements, and the fact that 70 to 75 percent of the tree is hollowed out, make it a potential hazard for the neighborhood, he said.
“I went to look at the tree, and when you look at the conditions of that tree, everything is telling you that the tree could be pretty hazardous in a situation like that,” Thoumsin said. “All it takes is a large branch falling on somebody or a car or something like this, and then you have a liability.”
Thoumsin said the ceremony will be symbolic.
“Since the tree is so precious to a lot of people, I think it’s good to do something before the tree is removed entirely,” Thoumsin said.
After the tree is removed on Monday, another Bigleaf maple will be planted in its location, Snyder said.
“The Bigleaf maples give back a lot of oxygen; they survive really well and they grow fast,” Rixmann said.
Rixmann said he’s never held a farewell gathering for a tree, but the Lemon Tree represents the history of the neighborhood. He would like to connect the life span and purpose of the tree to students who live there because many are only temporary residents, he said.
“We hope with this tree, by showing its legacy, that they have a legacy,” Rixmann said. “They’ll be a neighborhood resident for four years, and their entire life will be changed, and the neighborhood will be enriched because they’re here.”
Rixmann said he also plans to encourage more trees to be planted in the neighborhood. After the event on Saturday, residents are scheduled to plant two trees at the West University Neighborhood Park, he said.
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