Tree of Hell

The Monrovia Fire Department is very unhappy with the "Tree-of-Heaven," also called Ailanthus and Stinking Suma.
 
According to the Weekly Report from City Manager Scott Ochoa's office, the tree grows very fast (up to 6 feet in a season) and can break right through concrete. It crowds out everything else, makes an impenetrable stand and builds up fuel and is a mess.

Kill it - pull it out by the roots - if you find it in your yard. Here's how to spot it:

"It is a tall, deciduous tree (meaning that it drops its leaves in autumn) with smooth, grey bark and large, compound leaves 1-4 feet long, composed of many smaller leaflets in two rows. Crushed leaves and cut stems have a strong smell something like burned nuts or rancid peanut butter. Its leaves are somewhat similar in appearance to those of the walnut tree, but the fruits are a give-away - while walnut trees bear a nut inside a heavy, fleshy, roundish fruit (about golf-ball sized), tree-of-heaven's fruits are delicately wing-shaped and born in clusters - right now the fruits are a tan color and you can see many still on the trees, looking almost like clusters of flowers high up. Very tiny tree-of-heaven seedlings bear a slight resemblance to tomato seedlings. The smell of a crushed leaf should give it away."

Source: http://goo.gl/ZD6L

- Brad Haugaard