A tree dies in Auburn

espn.go.com | Aug 15th 2011 11:40 AM

This story appears in the Aug. 22, 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

THE TWO TREES AT TOOMER’S CORNER are little miracles. They grow farther north than most live oaks, and for this species of tree the slightest change in weather can be fatal. It turns out, in a strange bit of symbiosis, the trees don’t exist in spite of the town and campus around them. They exist, at least in part, because of them, as the brick and concrete hold several extra degrees of heat, enough to make a difference. The trees need Auburn to survive.

The oaks are nothing if not survivors. Their trunks hold dark spots where dead limbs have been cut away, the scars rubbed smooth. The living limbs twist up like an open hand, a canopy of green at the intersection of College and Magnolia in Auburn, Ala. On this spot, students celebrated the beginning of the Civil War and the election of Barack Obama. It has always been the center of Auburn.

For an SEC fan like me, it’s a famous place. Long before I’d ever actually seen the trees, I’d heard about Toomer’s Corner. A hundred and thirty years ago, the story went, these trees were planted. Around the turn of the century, the story went, people hung telegraph tape on the trees to announce an Auburn road win. When the telegraph faded away, toilet paper replaced the ticker tape. But the essential act remained and flourished, connecting generations. When Auburn won, the students rolled Toomer’s Corner.

It was joyous and innocent, right up until the day people first heard of Spike 80DF.

Spike is a muscular herbicide, and last November, an Alabama fan allegedly put more than 50 times the lethal dose into the soil around the trees. The idea of Cam Newton winning a national title festered until that fan took the crazy talk of message boards and hate radio into the actual world. In the hours after the news broke, people gathered at Toomer’s Corner. Families laid funeral wreaths. Someone placed the Joyce Kilmer poem “Trees” there. One man left a copy of The Giving Tree. Young Matty wrote, “Sorry the bab man poisoned you.” Eli wrote, “What he did was mean.” On the back of a receipt, a fan wrote: “Thank you Lord for your beautiful creation, the Toomer’s oaks. Please help them to survive this attack and continue to inspire many generations to come.” Someone left a prayer card of St. Anthony, the patron saint of miracles.

Auburn assembled its best minds, the men and women who’d spent their lives researching and teaching about soil, trees, chemicals and the fragility of the world around them. The scientists replaced all the dirt and used an air spade to delicately clean the roots. An expert from Dow AgroSciences, which makes the poison, arranged for activated charcoal to be spread around the trees. A chemical was sprayed on the backs of leaves to close the stomata, which would slow the uptake of poison. Then they waited. The first time I visited, the scientists met me underneath the shaded canopy. There was nothing more to do.

“These trees could die quickly,” said Gary Keever, head of the team of scientists. “They’ve taken up a lot of herbicide. It could be this summer.”

“Now it’s up to nature to take its course,” said Auburn forestry professor Scott Enebak.

“We’ll see how strong the trees are,” Keever said.