This fall's hurricane rampage through Florida
wrecked a little piece of Dallas, too.
Friday, December 24, 2004
By LARRY BLEIBERG / The Dallas Morning News
 Seeds
from the city's legendary Indian Marker pecan tree – itself
destroyed in a storm on Memorial Day in 1998 – were wiped out at the
Historic Tree Nursery in Jacksonville, Fla., by Hurricane Frances.
The nursery, part of the nonprofit group American Forests, sells
trees connected to historic events and personalities.
Seeds from the Indian Marker pecan tree (above), which once stood in
Dallas, were wiped out at a tree nursery in Florida.
It was growing first-generation offspring of the bowed tree, once
used by Comanche Indians to mark a campsite in what is now Gateway
Park in Pleasant Grove. Nuts were gathered from the Dallas tree in
1997 after an Indian elder performed a tree-blessing ceremony.
Musician and environmental advocate Don Henley attended, and TXU
Corp. provided a cherry picker to harvest the pecans.
Historians and Comanches said they believed the tree was a
marker, formed by tying down a sapling.
The nursery sold about 150 offspring for $35 apiece. Pat Sreenan
of Dallas bought one in honor of his late brother. But he delayed
planting, and it died in a pot.
"I am so sorry that I wasn't a better conservator," he said.
The Florida nursery planted a few of the seeds several years ago,
and the trees they yielded will soon bear nuts. But to some purists,
a second-generation tree lacks the same link to history.
Linda Pelon, who helped organize the harvesting ceremony, had
planned to buy saplings to plant where the original pecan stood.
"It's Comanche heritage, it's Texas heritage, it's American
heritage," she said. "A lot of people and generations have
connections to that tree." 
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