The Eucalyptus Trees Are Sick�

2001-08-17

The eucalyptus trees are sick. I was born in Southern California. Eucalyptus trees are almost as natural to me as they are to the Australians. I've lived with the sight and smell of them all my life. But the ones in my neighborhood are sick. And my neighborhood cover about 40 square miles. It worries me. What worries me more is what's making them sick. This is what the leaves look like in the early stages. They look much worse later on.

My husband and I walk around our neighborhood. Lately, when we walk under eucalyptus trees, there's this crunchy stuff underfoot. The little white things on this leaf are the crunchy stuff. The trees planted in the parking lot where I work have the same problem. I don't know how far this problem has spread, but it's everywhere I go.

I couldn't figure out if the crunchy things were some scale, or the result of what a bug did to the leaf. So I picked one of the leaves, and brought it home. I picked the white thing off of the leaf and saw a very tiny, translucent orange but under the white shell. It must be attaching to the veins in the leaf and sucking off the sap. The trees at work are dripping sap all over the parking lot. What are they? Where did they come from? And please, make them go home. The eucalyptus trees are sick.

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