Yellow Ribbons Cause Fungus in Trees?
Tree, You Are Doomed! (Kathy Ponce)
What the?…
The town board of Litchfield, Connecticut, has banned the tying of yellow ribbons around city trees in support of soldiers. For one thing, they don’t want to set a precedent for other causes and end up with an epidemic of yellow ribbon tying. I’m not sure what the origin of “tying a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree” is (could it really be that song by Tony Orlando and Dawn?).
Not only that, get this–the board also says it causes tree killing fungus!
The reason the board says they need to come down is because the ribbons, which are in support of American soldiers overseas, will set a precedent for other causes to put up ribbons. They also say the current ribbons cause a dangerous tree killing fungus.
Uh, I don’t think so. Turns out a local arborist doesn’t think so either. Where on earth could such a whack idea have come from? Okay, if you soak a ribbon in a tree killing fungus, hack open a tree’s bark with a saw and jam the ribbon in the wound, sure that might end up killing the tree. But seriously. I’m not even going to attempt to search the web for info on how a yellow ribbon can cause tree killing fungus infections!
Tags: tree fungus, yellow ribbons
You see, ribbons can be dirty, while the pristine air of Litchfield is perfectly clear and devoid of anything fungal. Thus, you can somehow instead spawn infectious fungal spores with the cloth and… ok, you’re right, they’re nuts.
Considering we’ve got about one mycologist/large university, and everything going downhill from there, not very surprising that the public knows even less about fungi than they do about human diseases or whatever. And my dear protists are even more neglected… *sob*