Free Republic

Toomer's Corner oaks poisoned with herbicide; unlikely to survive  AUBURN – Auburn University today confirmed that an herbicide commonly used to kill trees was deliberately applied in lethal amounts to the soil around the Toomer's Corner live oaks on campus, and there is little chance to save the trees. More information and ongoing updates as to treatment and prognosis are available on this site.The City of Auburn Police Division is investigating the situation, and the application of this herbicide, known as Spike 80DF, or tebuthiuron, is also governed by state agricultural laws and the Environmental Protection Agency. The university does...

It wasn't just any oak tree that politicians gathered to shovel dirt at on the Bexar County Courthouse's south lawn. It was grown from an acorn off the Treaty Oak. Austin's Treaty Oak is about 500 years old and was supposedly the site where Stephen F. Austin signed a treaty with Native Americans. But it was what many considered its attempted murder by Paul Stedman Cullen in 1989 that made the tree famous to most moderns. Cullen, who had a criminal history, drug problems and an interest in the occult, poured a powerful herbicide around the stately tree's base in...