TREE PROFESSIONALS: PECAN AT 509 LOUISIANA ST. WOULD HAVE JUST DIED ANYWAY 
The pecan tree formerly behind the former Longhorn Cafe on Louisiana St. is down at last, following the 100-plus-year-old buildings at 509 and 517 Louisiana into that Great Big Preservation District in the Sky. Nancy Sarnoff of the Houston Chronicle reports that 2 arborists were called in to examine the tree, and pronounced it dead-or-close-enough: Lauren Lusk Willis, a member of the family that owns the next-door Lancaster Hotel, told the Chronicle that a lightning strike had damaged the tree, and that its core was rotting. Willis said that the pecan “would not likely have survived the leveling of the lot for any construction,” and that “ultimately, it wouldn’t have survived regardless.” The tree, haunted by a both-Sam-and-city-of Houston ghost story, was long visible only to those who entered 509 Louisiana’s hidden courtyard, until the pecan’s 2001 outing by the demo of the Rice Rittenhouse parking garage; it went back into hiding by the end of 2003 with the help of 33-story Calpine Center. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of the pecan tree, following demolition of 509 Louisiana St.: KineticD
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“ultimately, it wouldn’t have survived regardless.†– This is true for every living thing.
Poor guy. All alone in that dank corner. Probably wastes the day away dreaming of being part of an orchard. Or wishes he could get hold of a bunch of balloons like that old guy did in a movie this little birdie told him about. Praying for the day when Juan Kevorkian approaches him with the sound of a revving two stroke engine to end the pain.
Pecans are pretty damned messy and almost not worth commenting on. The nutless wonder in my yard gets its bark chewed off by squirrels and is always dropping dead limbs. But it’s more fun to complain than to have it removed.
That has to be the scrawniest 100 year old pecan tree on the planet.
What’s going on here? Are they building another Wendy’s?