Down comes another liquid ambar tree

Liquid ambar trees provide Menlo Park with its terrific fall color. They also happen to be very messy.  The trees’ spiky round fruit, “popularly nicknamed a space bug, monkey ball, bommyknocker, bir ball, gumball, conkleberry, cukoo-bir or sticky ball” (says Wikipedia) can gum up sidewalks and cling to pets. It seems to fall from the trees month after month and long after the deciduous tree has shed its leaves. All this leads to many residents’ vociferous dislike of the species. This particular liquid ambar was cut down today on Oak Knoll Lane; it’s long seemed less than healthy. According the city of Menlo Park, when a heritage liquid ambar is removed, it must be replaced by – yep – a liquid ambar tree.