My wife and I live on cattle farm surrounded by dense, privately owned woods. These woods have been used primarily for hunting, thus has been allowed to grow out without much active management. On some of the pasture and field edges, there are stands of Ailanthus altissima, more commonly known as Tree-of-Heaven (and sometimes Chinese Sumac). This tree species was introduced to the United States in the 1700s in Pennsylvania as an ornamental plant and has been present in the Virginia since the 1800s. Tree-of-Heaven looks similar to Staghorn Sumac, a native tree, but they have no relation - they aren’t even in the same family of trees.

Tree-of-Heaven has many bad traits that make it a more problematic invasive species. First, it isn’t a great tree to have in a forest as it doesn’t provide high quality, straight timber. Second, it attracts and gives a habitat for a more recent invasive insect, the Spotted Lanternfly. Also from China, the Spotted Lanternfly was introduced much later in 2014 also to Pennsylvania, most likely in a shipment from China. The Spotted Lanternfly have a host-parasite relationship in which the Lanterfly feeds on the sap of the Tree-of-Heaven, and excrete honeydew which encourages the growth of sooty mold below the tree. A stand of Tree-of-Heavens are obvious in the late Summer, early Fall by the large black mold swatch under the trees. Sadly, the numbers of Lanterfly in the eastern US are growing exponentially and causing problems by feeding on Maple and Black Walnut trees, in addition to vegetables and other crops such as grapes.

The final problem with Tree-of-Heaven trees relates to their ability to reproduce asexually, through clonal root suckers. This is exasperated by stress on the plant, such as a lighting strike, or being cut down. Thus, often property owners with good intentions cut down their Tree-of-Heaven’s. Instead of fixing the infestation, it makes it much worse by spreading tens to hundreds of root suckers from around the deceased tree.

The Tree-of-Heaven root suckering behavior has an obvious classical literary corollary – the Hydra. We learn from oral tradition written of the Lernean Hydra, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. The Hydra lived in the Lake of Lerna, the entrance to the underworld. The story goes that Hercules, married Megara, the eldest daughter of King Creon, but soon after, in a fit of madness, killed her and his children. In seeking reconciliation, Hercules went to the Oracle of Delphi and inquired as to how he might atone for his actions. Pythia ordered him to serve his cousin, King Eurystheus for twelve years, doing whatever labours were requested of him. After much complaining, Hercules obeyed.

Hercules was given ten labors to complete, although he ended up completing twelve. The second of the labors took him to the Lake of Lerna to slay the Hydra. When Hercules attempted to cut off the many heads of the Hydra, he found that when one head was cut off, two grew back. Hercules quickly realized that he would not be able to defeat the Hydra alone, so he called upon his nephew Iolaus for help. Hercules cut off the Hydra’s heads and Iolaus used a firebrand to burn the cut stumps to prevent them from growing back. This way, they were able to slay the Hydra, although Hercules was not given credit for this labor as he used the help of Iolaus.