She's gone. And what remains of her on the high bank of Peachtree Creek along Peachtree Road is just sad, gray and cruel: The last wild peach tree on Peachtree Road is no more.

For the past 20 years, give or take a few, the scraggly, crookback fruit tree in question stood at the corner of Atlanta's most famous road and a quiet residential circle called Fairhaven. Standing on a small patch of earth between asphalt and the edge of the Peachtree Creek, it had weathered coughs of black exhaust, burrowing insects and the lethal, green embrace of kudzu.

Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)

Last summer, the last known wild peach tree on Peachtree Road had bloomed and produced a peach. There will be no flowers or fruit this year.

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Its battle scars were obvious, and it looked more than a little wounded. Yet last year, at the height of the drought, it blushed pink blossoms and by August, when a story about it appeared in this newspaper, it had produced a single peach the size of a skipping stone.

Some believe Peachtree Road might get its name from this tree's long-ago kin. There are others who say that notion is as romantic as it is inaccurate, that the famed street's name comes from the pine or "pitch" tree that marked a long-gone Indian settlement.

What was the provenance of the old tree near the entrance of the Peachtree Hills neighborhood? Speculation runs as deep as its roots: a discarded snack; a pit carried by squirrel from a grove of peach trees planted at the nearby Cathedral of St. Philip.

Or maybe it was the hand of the Count.

Count Beauregard DuBois — "at least that's what he called himself" — was a Peachtree Hills resident and fixture back in the 1970s and '80s, said his former neighbor, Frank McComb. McComb is a member of the neighborhood board and garden committee. To McComb's recollection, DuBois once planted a few such saplings, including this one, at that intersection as a tribute to the road and neighborhood.

"I think," McComb said. "I'm pretty sure."

Here's what is known. The tree is not there now.

In an e-mail, Wayne Darcey, Atlanta Parks and Recreation operations manager, said he could find no work order for that corner or tree. There are no skid marks on the pavement suggesting an out-of-control car plowed into it. So what happened?

As best as can be determined, about seven weeks ago the lonely tree became a victim of guilt by association.

A nearby pine tree, towering and rotten, came crashing down, blocking access to Fairhaven. It was removed from the road, but not immediately cut up. Some neighbors took to it with chain saws and reduced it to little more than kindling. Then someone looked over and saw the peach tree — leafless, budless, dormant. It was over in seconds.

"It was just so pitiful looking," said Nancy Dillon, a neighbor who was there that day but didn't see the old gal fall. "And you know, it was about half-dead anyway."

Told of the tree's demise, Marcia Bansley, executive director of conservation group Trees Atlanta, let out an "Aaawwww, geeeez." Then she asked how much of the tree was left. Perhaps a resurrection was possible? A stump, she was told, is all that remains.

Not much you can do with that, Bansley said.

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