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Chinaberry Trees
By Melanie Devore
Clark Byers created the South’s most visible and beloved works of art. “I bet more people have seen my signs than any other person’s work in America. I’m proud of being a part of Southern history.” Byers boasted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1997. It ain’t bragging if you can back it up, and more than 900 barns from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast served as evidence to support Byers’ proclamation. Countless decorative birdhouses simply added an exclamation point to his claim.
Byers was a master of invasive, highway, slogan art and cruised the countryside in an old truck equipped with a ladder, ropes, and gallons of black and red paint. Along with two assistants, Byers could transform the roofs of six barns a day into bold billboards. “See Rock City.” “To Miss Rock City Would Be a Pity.” “When You See Rock City, You Will See the Best.” No passing motorist could escape the pleas to visit the tourist site perched on Lookout Mountain along the Georgia-Tennessee state line. What Byers created Lady Bird taketh away. Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was a death nail to major works of invasive, highway, slogan art. But minor scaled examples of the Rock City approach always existed, and will continue to exist.
Flannery O’Connor paid homage to invasive, highway, slogan art in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” O’Connor paints such a vivid portrait of Red Sammy Butts’ signs that the reader tends to think that the roadside barbeque-dance hall-filling station is called “Red Sammy’s” and not “The Tower.” Red Sammy’s signs are so effective that any motorist would have a mental image of Mr. Butts before succumbing to his fat boy siren song for saucy, pulled pork. Red Sammy pitches his pork and his winsome personality. But he fails to use signage to pitch his primate attraction.
No doubt Red Sammy had high hopes that his gray monkey would help draw in the costumers. Instead of sharing Sammy’s sunny disposition, the beast bounds up the tree to avoid visiting children. Sammy fails to advertise his exotic beast. The chinaberry tree the monkey is chained to, like the monkey, is an introduced foreign guest. Unlike the monkey, chinaberry trees have effortlessly slipped into Southern living.
Nobody really knows exactly what the natural distribution of the chinaberry (Melia azedarach) is. These distinctive trees belonging to the Meliaceae, or Mahogany Family, are believed to be native to Asia. Because chinaberry is adaptable to many habitats, produces a staggering array of secondary compounds deterring disease and insects, and thrives in disturbed habitats and open fields, it is the perfect invader. Taking an axe or chainsaw to the trunk of the chinaberry will only encourage the production of more stems from the base of the stumps and the establishment of dense stands of the tree. It is no surprise that chinaberry made a convoluted, conquering pathway throughout many regions of the world.
Chinaberry trees have been cultivated and made their way from Asia and India around the Mediterranean and into northern Africa and Moorish Gardens by the 12th century. From there it is impossible to keep track of when and how many times it was introduced into Europe and from Europe into the United States. In some cases, European plant collectors re-introduced chinaberry lineages from the U.S. back to Europe. George Washington had chinaberry trees (sometimes at that time referred to as Persian lilac or Pride of India) at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson had the trees listed in his catalogue of plants from Monticello. And, there are chinaberries on the grounds of Andalusia.
The fragrant, lilac colored flowers of chinaberries often greet visitors to Andalusia in the spring. In the late fall and winter, the same trees are adorned with hundreds of yellowish-orange, sticky fruits. Chinaberry fruits have a fleshy outer wall and a stony inner wall called an endocarp, which harbors the seeds. In an age before the Internet and video games, the endocarps were prized by many a child in central Georgia and were fashioned into necklaces. Birds use chinaberries as a food source and play a significant role in spreading chinaberry seeds along fields and fencerows throughout the South. Although the fruits are toxic to mammals, including humans, some birds are not affected by chinaberry’s chemical arsenal and can safely ingest the fruits. On occasion, other birds experience paralysis after dining on the attractive, orange orbs. The temptation to dine on these fruits, that persist after the leaves have fallen to ground, is too much for any avian with a hearty appetite.
Leaf fall from chinaberry does more than showcase the trees attractive fruit. As the leaves decompose, they release compounds that change the chemistry of the surrounding soil and deter the growth of surrounding plants. Before long, encroaching thickets of chinaberry displace native tree species in marshes and woodlands just as effectively as they invade our roadsides.
My heart is saddened at the thought of a roadside without distinctive displays of invasive, highway, slogan art. Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia declared “See Rock City” barns as historical sites and preserved these folk art treasures for a whole new generation of motorists. Today there are fewer arrays of catchy signs with slogans pitching barbeque, pecans, or other Southern delicacies at establishments nestled just off of exits of our highways. However, we will never be able to eradicate the chinaberry from our roadsides. The galaxies of bright orange fruits born on chinaberry trees will continue to greet us every January and February as we drive through Flannery O’Connor’s beloved Georgia.
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