Botany: The Crying Tree

None of the seven acacia trees in the front yard of Sam Morse’s home in La Feria, Texas, seem different from any of the others—or from their countless cousins that thrive in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. But to thousands of Mexican-Americans in the area, one of Morse’s 30-ft. acacias has suddenly become “God’s tree,” an object of awe and veneration. That particular acacia lost its anonymity in mid-July when a stream of tea-colored “water” began spewing from a knothole in a limb 25 ft. above the ground. Local Mexican-Americans soon saw religious significance in the “crying tree”; they began dropping by to touch it, rub its mysterious fluid on their bodies, and even to drink the stuff.

Stories inevitably spread about miraculous cures effected by the acacia’s water. A blind woman said her sight was restored after the acacia’s liquid was poured into her eyes. Open sores on a child’s face were reported washed away. Arthritic pain and lung congestion apparently disappeared after sufferers drank the fluid. Soon busloads of visitors were arriving at the Morse property from as far away as San Antonio and Monterrey, Mexico.

50¢ Admission. To control the crowds and compensate for his inconvenience, Morse erected an 8-ft.-high chain-link fence around the tree, hired two gatekeepers and began charging visitors 50¢ admission to touch the magic acacia and carry its liquid away in pop bottles. His curiosity piqued by the spreading excitement over the acacia, Tree Surgeon Grover Smith arrived from nearby Harlingen, and somehow climbed the tree without Morse’s knowledge. His deflating conclusion, which was printed in the local press: insects had bored “into a little old bitty knothole and the tree just started bleeding.” It was sap, not water, flowing out of the tree, Smith insisted.

The skeptical surgeon was backed up by Houston Botanist Robert Vines in a terse explanation. “Sam Morse’s tree,” he said, “is simply an ordinary Leucaena pulverulenta, better known as an Acacia, a Lead-tree or a Great Lead-tree. When the bark ruptures on this kind of tree, the pressure inside the tree’s vessels forces its abundant supply of sap to run through the opening.”

Despite such expert testimony and a sudden halting of the sap flow late last month, Rio Grande Valley residents have continued to pour into La Feria to share in the “miracle” of Morse’s acacia. On Labor Day weekend alone, some 1,500 passed through the chain-link fence. Scorning science, and showing that he knows a miracle when he sees one, Morse has been making plans to surround the tree with paving stones and to erect an awning to shield waiting patrons from the hot Texas sun. Meanwhile, he is waiting patiently for his bountiful acacia to cry again.