Ailanthus altissima
Upon the barred and slitted wall the splotched shadow of the heaven-tree shuddered and pulsed monstrously in scarce any wind; rich and sad, the singing fell behind.In the 2013 book "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City" by journalist Gordon Young, the tree is referenced in a description of the Carriage Town neighborhood in Flint, Michigan.Festive Victorian-era homes in various stages of restoration battled for supremacy with boarded-up firetraps and overgrown lots landscaped with weeds, garbage, and “ghetto palms,” a particularly hardy invasive species known more formally as Ailanthus altissima, or the tree of heaven, perhaps because only God can kill the things. Around the corner, business was brisk at a drug house where residents and customers alike weren’t above casually taking a piss in the driveway.