# Trees You Don't Like **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 30, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137 "2005-05-30T22:06:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/21 "2005-05-31T01:50:11Z")
> [@chique](#): > > Yeah, they’re related. Cottonwoods, poplars, and aspens all have “real” names that start with _populus_. Count me in as a cottonwood-hater. Our neighbors (delightful people otherwise) have five of them on their property. We have a swimming pool. I spend a good portion of my summer scooping the equivalent of a sweatsock on fluff out of my pool filters. I don’t like snow in winter, and I sure as HECK don’t want more of it in the spring and summer! ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/22 "2005-05-31T06:28:09Z")
Good news **Mangetout**. From June 1 a new law comes into force to try and control the Leyland Cypress and its ilk. If you neighbour objects you will be limited to keeping the Cyprus hedge below 2 metres. And you will have to pay to get the things down to this size. Details here :- [High hedge law](http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4625641) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/23 "2005-05-31T13:31:05Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > The bane of my existence is the [Punk Tree](http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/mequ1.htm). It’s name says volumes about it. Sure it looks pretty but it smells like rotten boiled potatoes and it is extremely allergenic (I am very allergic to it). It’s also one of those invader plants that has taken over and has become almost impossible to get rid of. Argh. Meluluca. They were intentionally planted down here to dry out areas for development. Someone once told me that people would sprinkle the seeds out of salt-and-pepper shakers from airplanes. That sounds silly, but I wouldn’t put it pass the government to do something like that. And now whenever lightening strikes, the meluluca catches on fire like crazy. Punk tree indeed. ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/24 "2005-05-31T13:42:49Z")
I hate the Norway Maple. It has the root system of the devil. They will travel far and wide to spread their evil. I also hate those trees that smell like sperm. They’re not bad looking but they reek. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/25 "2005-05-31T14:11:44Z")
- ailanthus altissima\* is a tree?? In all of my growing up in the 'hood days, I thought it was just an overgrown weed. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/26 "2005-05-31T15:12:42Z")
The invasive non-native [buckthorn](http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/rhca1.htm) (Rhamnus cathartica). Damn things just keep coming back, no matter how many I cut down each year, I find more the next. Fuck you buckthorn. Fuck. You. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/27 "2005-05-31T15:24:37Z")
Another cottonwood hater. The bark is interesting, but the things are like goddamn weeds, choking out other growth and creating summer snowstorms. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/28 "2005-05-31T15:38:21Z")
Ah, doing a little more research, I see that the female of the poplars are the ones that make the fluff. We must have a male one in our yard, because it was producing sticky little yellow things that got stuck on everything and tracked into the house, not the drifts of “cotton” that the females produce. But I still hate both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/29 "2005-05-31T16:37:15Z")
[Bradford Pear.](http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/Graphics/pear/bpear.htm) They look nice when they bloom in the spring, but they’re not sturdy. After a few years, their branches break off, sometimes splitting the tree in half. They’re the bane of houseowners in my neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/30 "2005-05-31T16:50:31Z")
The tamarac. Which, apparently is just another name for the larch. So, I’m another larch hater. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/31 "2005-05-31T17:00:55Z")
> [@fishbicycle](#): > > We are renting our house. In the front yard, there is a massive sweet-gum tree. Every spring, it grows new, green, spiky seed pods. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Over the summer, they fall out of the tree, all over my lawn. And they keep dying and falling off, right up through the next spring. I hate that stupid tree. If it were not the only big tree in the front, it’d be going away. Oh well. Just don’t walk barefoot in our yard! I have one of those in my back yard and I hate those stupid balls. A few years back I was washing down the pool cover after opening the pool, walking on the cover in my bare feet. I managed to stumble into the small bump made by one of those spikey balls through the tarp and it caused my second toe to curl under as I slipped and my entire weight fell upon the curled toe. There was an audible _pop_ as the toe broke. All because of that little spikey seed pod. (btw: the doctor simply taped it to the next toe. Not very satisfying). ---
**Author:** ![Corii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Corii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/32 "2005-05-31T17:01:45Z")
Ginkgos - their dropped berries smell like fermented vomit. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/33 "2005-05-31T17:03:54Z")
> [@Corii](#): > > Ginkgos - their dropped berries smell like fermented vomit. Ugh. But they’re so pretty in the fall, when they turn all gold. Archergal, who never had to live very near a ginkgo. ---
**Author:** ![Corii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Corii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/34 "2005-05-31T17:05:30Z")
I should clarify, only the FEMALE ginkgo tree drops those nasty, stinky, slimy fruits. The male tree is okay by me. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/35 "2005-05-31T18:04:36Z")
Joshua trees. Even the ones that are supposed to look [pretty](http://www.joshua.tree.national-park.com/) look ugly to me. They look like Chewbaka with multiple heads. Butt ugly! They are one of the “features” of the high desert that made me long to leave there. And they are protected. You can’t cut one down even if it’s on your own property. Any other tree okay, but the Joshua’s must be left with their ugly shapes and bearded limbs wherever some perverse god spread them. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/36 "2005-05-31T18:11:49Z")
Oh! Very on topic for me. I hate [this giant oak tree that fell onto my house last Wednesday night at 11:30 pm](http://maverickpace.com/v-web/gallery/album21/P1010113). It could have easily killed my daughter if the shattered remains of the chimney didn’t stop it. $100,000+ worth of damage later, we now have to rebuild a sizable part of our house over the next few months. I am now going to become like the anti-Johnny Appleseed. My trademark will be a chainsaw. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/37 "2005-05-31T18:18:33Z")
Mimosas. Their horrid shade of pink is appropriate only on a hooker’s feather boa. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/38 "2005-05-31T18:31:12Z")
Not to one-up or nuffin’, but these minor irritations are but a drop in the bucket comapred to the histamine hell that the scrubby, omnipresent Texas cedar tree and its vile, loathesome pollen spore put me through each spring. Imagine being deathly allergic to cats and then attending a cat zoo in the middle of a ten thousand acre cat preserve with severe overcrowding problems, all while wearing a garment made entirely of live cats. I actually kinda like the trees themselves; they’re pretty in a gnarled sort of way, but I wish they’d just reproduce like normal people. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/39 "2005-05-31T18:35:26Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > Not to one-up or nuffin’, but these minor irritations are but a drop in the bucket… Er…'cept for that one tree that smashes up houses and nearly kills family members and such. :eek: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137/40 "2005-05-31T19:01:30Z")
I hate palm trees. Especially those damned super tall skinny ones. Around here at least, they’re ugly, just a scraggy pole with limp hairy fronds that drop all year, some have disgusting useless berries. They harbor pigeons, rats, and roaches, crack concrete, catch fire and give no shade worth mentioning. Removal is a nightmare and volunteers are forever volunteering exactly where they shouldn’t. Damned palm trees, tropical splendor my ass. Indian laurel trees aren’t my favorite tree either. Mainly because they’re just green. Boring bunches of leaves, never turn color and then they drop little yellow fruits for variety. Year after year as they get bigger and bigger, _boring_ trees… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-you-dont-like/306137.md?page=3)