A Dead Tree

Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma is dotted with "glorietas", or roundabouts.  Most of these traffic circles contain monuments or fountains, but one of them has been dominated by a single, towering palm tree for decades.  The roundabout became known as "La Glorieta de la Palma".

(image taken from the internet)

Last year I wrote that the iconic palm tree was infected with a fungus, and that it was necessary to remove it.  A survey was taken in which people could vote for which kind of tree should replace the palm.  Their choice was an "ahuehuete", known in English as a Montezuma cypress.  The tree was considered sacred by the pre-Hispanic peoples of Mexico.  

In June of 2022, a 33-foot-tall cypress from the state of Nuevo Leon was brought to the "glorieta" to be planted.

I was walking along Reforma last week, and, sadly, it appears that the tree is dead.

The city government placed a barricade around the traffic circle to protect the tree.  The families of missing persons used the fence to post photos of the disappeared and asked that the roundabout be renamed "The Glorieta of the Disappeared".  Last November, the government removed the photos, and the barricade was painted with Christmas decorations.  Within a week, activists had painted over the Christmas decorations and again posted photos of the missing.

 "In Mexico City there are thousands of disappeared."

"In Mexico there is no Christmas with more than 107 thousand disappeared."

More than 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since 1964.  They are victims of government campaigns against leftists in the 20th century, violence against women, and the drug wars.