The City of Whitehorse, Yukon handed out hundreds of seedlings from a Mayday tree some consider historically significant on Aug 26--mere days after their Alaskan neighbors promoted funding to help residents of Anchorage cull the highly invasive trees from their yards.
The City of Whitehorse propagated seedlings from the “Martha Black” Mayday tree, an exceptionally attractive specimen which graces the front yard of Whitehorse City Hall. The tree is considered a small piece of Yukon history, as it originally grew at the First Avenue home of Martha Black, also known as the Yukon’s “First Lady,” an American-born white settler who came to the Yukon via Alaska and the infamously difficult Chilkoot Pass and went on to be the Yukon’s first woman member of Parliament, serving from 1935 to 1940. The tree was moved to city hall to honour Black, who died in 1957.
The Martha Black Mayday is slated to be cut down as part of the construction of a new city hall sometime in 2022. Martin Paquette, crew leader for the city’s parks and recreation department, said that the tree is also nearing the end of it’s natural lifecycle, which is “naturally fairly short” at about 60 to 70 years, and would die in the near-future even if it wasn’t cut down.
There are moderate differences in environment and climate between the Yukon and Alaska which may impact the invasive tree’s success in either region, but exactly what if any impact Mayday trees have on Yukon’s environment in particular is difficult to say, as no Yukon-based work has been done on the subject.
Around 300 seedlings were given away in a publicized event in which residents were invited to “take home a piece of history.” Residents literally lined up around the block to receive a seedling, and although the event was scheduled to run between 12PM and 2PM every single seedling had been spoken for by 12:30PM.
The seedlings also came with literature on how best to care for them to ensure their successful growth, including how to best water and fertilize them.
When asked, Paquette said both he and the city were aware of the invasive nature of the tree, but that this particular specimen was “a very emotional tree” for Whitehorse residents, and that they had made the choice to propagate it because of its “historical” value. They had to choose a balance between the perceived legacy of the tree to Whitehorse residents, and it’s invasive potential, and decided in favour of the historical value of the tree.
Arctic Focus reached out to both the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch’än Council, on whose traditional territories the tree has been dispersed, but neither government had someone available to comment on the matter.
Paquette said the demand for seedlings from this particular tree was so great that the city plans to propagate and give away more in the future. Although Paquette said the city would not be planting anymore Mayday trees on city property, Kulych told Yukon News that seedlings from the Martha Black Mayday tree have been harvested for use in landscaping for the future city hall and that the city has “every intention” of “continuing the Martha Black story and lineage of that Martha Black tree in the new services[1] building.”
Jim Renkert, program coordinator with Alaska Community Forestry, expressed surprise when told Whitehorse residents were not only not being instructed to kill their trees, but that the city was dispersing more of them. His department was offering a grant to help remove and replace the trees in Alaska.
Mayday trees (Prunus padus), also known as bird cherry or chokecherry, are native to Northern Europe and Asia, and were first imported into Alaska and the Yukon as flowering ornamentals. In the spring--usually sometime in May or early June in the North, hence the tree’s name--Maydays burst into profusion of white, delicate blossoms, similar in size and appearance to crab apples, which have a strong, sweet fragrance. In the fall, these flowers become small, dark berries – dime-sized, edible but bitter fruits shaped like cherries beloved by birds, which consume them with gusto, propagating the trees by spreading their seeds in their droppings. The trees are not only beautiful, but exceptionally hardy, capable of surviving temperatures of up to -36 C for extended periods of time, making them well adapted to Northern growing conditions.
Unfortunately, under the right conditions, the trees can become invasive, overtaking and displacing native plants – which is exactly what is happening in riparian zones in Anchorage and Fairbanks, says Renkert, program coordinator with Alaska Community Forestry. The invasive trees can form “monoculture thickets” in which Maydays have a near exclusive monopoly on the landscape, effectively “bullying” out native plants like willows and aspens --a problem the state of Alaska has recognized for years.
This can be an especial problem for moose, because Maydays can produce cyanogenic glycosides as a defense when nibbled on. When consumed in large enough quantities, this can cause cyanide poisoning --even death – in moose, although this doesn’t happen “on a large scale,” Renkert says.
The problem with Mayday trees extends beyond their potential toxicity and invasive nature, as it turns out the trees behave a lot like Mickey’s magic broom in Fantasia; unless every single root is removed, no matter how small you chop them, a Mayday will just pop right back. Simply taking a chainsaw to a problem tree doesn’t do any good– in fact it only makes it worse, as cutting or trimming back Maydays actually stimulates growth. The best way to get rid of a Mayday tree, says Renkert, is to apply herbicide directly to the vascular system of the tree, which is best done by a professional.
Under the right conditions, Mayday trees can become invasive, overtaking and displacing native plants. (Photo: Lori Fox)
Bruce Bennett, a Yukon-based biologist and volunteer with the Yukon Invasive Species Council (YISC), a non-government organization, said via email the spread of Mayday trees, along with other invasive shrubs, is being fueled by climate change, and that he can “guarantee these exotic shrubs will increasingly spread (as) similar situations in eastern Canada and the northeastern USA have shown this could be a problem, displacing native species.”
Bennett added, however, that “it is hard to know when or if Mayday trees will become a problem,” in the territory, in part because, being invasive, they are not classified as “wildlife” under the Yukon Wildlife Act, meaning it's arguably not technically the Yukon government’s purview to study them.
Both Renkert and Bennett noted that there are moderate differences in environment and climate between the Yukon and Alaska which may impact the invasive tree’s success in either region, but exactly what if any impact Mayday trees have on Yukon’s environment in particular is difficult to say, as no Yukon-based work has been done on the subject.
Jesse Devost, director of communications for Yukon’s Department of Energy, Mines and Resources confirmed via email that the government has not done any studies on Mayday trees in the territory, although it is “found throughout” the territory and is recognized to have “medium/high invasiveness.”
“There has been colonization of the Mayday tree on the islands on the Yukon River in Whitehorse and seedlings have appeared in the past in open forested areas around Yukon University and in Hillcrest (a local suburb), but our cold winter likely killed them. It has also been spotted in the Marsh Lake area,” Devost said. “We understand in Alaska the tree poses a more significant problem with concern of uncontrolled spread.”
Renkert recommended biologists in Yukon start looking into the impacts of Mayday trees in the territory “as quickly as possible.”
