This Popular Tree in Chicago Will Soon Be Illegal

Reading this story reminded of my time at North Central College. Right near one of the lecture halls was a towering tree known as Ginkgo Biloba, which was yellow in color when in bloom. During the fall, when school would start, the tree would drop big yellow seeds that looked like walnuts, and the smell that would emanate from those seeds would be putrid. It made the whole area around the lecture hall smell like sulfur and rotting eggs. I learned this the hard way as a freshman, when seeds from the tree had caked on my shoes and the smell followed me all day. I made it a point to avoid that stretch of campus for the remainder of my time in college.

This brings me to the Callery pear, a tree with a certain level of ubiquity in Chicago and the surrounding area. The Callery pear, also known as the Bradford pear, will soon be illegal to sell or grow following the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR) adding it to the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act.

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Why the Callery Pear Will Soon be Illegal in Chicago:

Native to Asia, the Callery pear was introduced to the United States in the 1950s for use in research. Per the Morton Arboretum, it was considered as a potential means to "develop resistance to fire blight in edible pears." Its branches are notoriously weak, and some of the first to break during storms. Now, the plant is considered an "exotic weed" due to its invasive nature.

The Callery pear can crosspollinate with other pear trees, for they are not self-fertile. The tree will officially be declared an invasive weed on January 1st, 2028. Lake Bluff Arborist Dave Horvath spoke in detail about why the tree has become problematic:

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As soon as you start introducing different cultivars, those new cultivars start pollinating with the Bradford pear and then what you get is viable fruit, fruit that produces seed that can germinate. And unfortunately, this species is exceptionally aggressive once it escapes cultivation. So the fruit is very small - it's really the size of our fingernail on our hand - but when it germinates, it has completely different characteristics than what we think of the Bradford pear. It's very thick, it has these kind of a thorny growths on it so it's really hard to walk through it, it blocks native vegetation [....] it disrupts our local ecosystem - Lake Bluff Arborist Dave Horvath, per NBC 5 Chicago

What to Do if You Have a Callery Pear Tree Growing in Your Yard:

Horvath told NBC 5 Chicago that residents who have Callery pear trees in their yard need not worry about removing them. It's important not to plant any new ones, but you won't be penalized for having one in your yard nor forced to cut it down:

That's something really important to consider, is I do understand that there's probably a lot of homeowners that either have them on their property, they don't want to get rid of them. We're not telling people right now that you have to get rid of it, right? We don't have those incentive programs in a lot of the communities here, but I would not be against someone if they wanted to get rid of the Callery pear - Lake Bluff Arborist Dave Horvath, per NBC 5 Chicago

Read more about the Callery pear being added to the Illinois Exotic Weeds Act on NBC 5 Chicago's website.