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| Conrad & Ailanthus altissima. Vista, CA |
Back in October I was able to connect with the arborist mentioned in my last blog post. I had a name, a phone number, and I knew he worked in Devore. I searched typed 'Aaron Echols plants inland empire' in the search bar on my web browser and found his email in no time! So I sent an email, left a voicemail on the phone number my aunt Carrie gave me, and crossed my fingers. A day or so later I got a call from him!
Aaron was very friendly on the phone and shared some great information with me. He is a Restoration Ecologist for the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District, and one of the things he does is remove invasive plant species like the tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) that can outcompete native species by allelopathy and cause structural damage to buildings or roads. He was digging around Wikipedia for information on a PowerPoint presentation he was working on & found myocarditis being mentioned as a cause for concern with Ailanthus altissima. This is the presentation my aunt Carrie must have heard. While PPE is always taken seriously, Aaron had never spoken to someone that had actually been diagnosed with Myocarditis and came into contact with the tree of...heaven.
I shared with Aaron the fact that I used to weed-whack poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) for hours and have no issues at all. I even used to harvest stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) to help a friend that suffered from arthritis. I was perfectly healthy, until I touched the Ailanthus altissima. The biogenic variability of individuals means different plants can cause different reactions in everyone. I found this article from Penn State Extension where it states a few cases of dermatitis have been reported by coming into contact with Ailanthus altissima, and there have been rare reports of myocarditis when being exposed to the sap through broken skin.
It was great talking with someone passionate about plants like Aaron, and he suggested I continue my research by looking into the CAL-IPC symposium & talking to the Catalina Island Conservancy. So, my next blog post will probably be about those two topics, but I also want to look into the history of this plant, what the future holds for this plant, and find out who I can blame for giving it the name 'tree of heaven'. I also plan to never stand so close to plant that again, but I needed at least one selfie with the plant that almost killed me right!? A huge thank you to Arron Echols for his time & being one of the first people to help me start connecting the dots between Ailanthus altissma & myocarditis.