Los Angeles: No more fronds for Sukkot

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Los Angeles officials said the city won't supply palm fronds to Jewish families for the harvest holiday of Sukkot after this year.

The City Department of Public Works announced that palm fronds will no longer be supplied to Jewish families to build ceremonial huts, known as sukkahs, or to any religious groups for other purposes, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Department spokeswoman Jackie David said the city's decision is partly due to a fungus known as fusarium wilt, which has been eating away at the city's Canary Island palms.

"The city is concerned about aging trees and the transmission of fusarium," David told the Times

She said the move is also "partly due to funding constraints. We are in the process of reevaluating many programs in order to use our resources most efficiently while still continuing to meet the needs of the public."

Jim Adaskaveg, a professor of plant pathology and an expert in tree diseases at the University of California, Riverside, said fusarium wilt enters a tree's vascular tissue and creates threads that block the tree's straw-like tubes.

"It's known as a lethal disease. There's no cure, once you have it," Adaskaveg said to the newspaper.