Excerpt:
As a phytoacummulator, she can absorb pollutants such as sulphur and mercury, which makes her a valuable ally in reducing toxins.  She flourishes in ruderal worlds usually considered hostile of life: along roads and railways, in sidewalk cement cracks, in abandoned urban lots. As our climate changes and our ecosystems become hotter or drier or simply different, she will be able to thrive when other trees will not. 
She has become a powerful symbol for beings that can flourish in what seem like impossible circumstances and of immigrants being able to thrive in difficult circumstances.   Her story is one of complex ecologies with multiple strands that reach into human sensory experience, a geopolitical imagination, racism, urban decay and revitalization, and so much more.