Can you imagine Los Angeles without palm trees? Didn’t think so. But Paula Daniels, head of the mayor’s One Million Tree initiative, which seeks to bring more shade to the sun-baked city, does.

Daniels tells USA Today that while those palms are sure iconic, they just don’t give the city what it needs: an assist with air and water quality. Oak trees can provide that, and as the palms die off – which can cost as much as $20,000 to replace – the city is looking to plant hardwoods.

According to the report, many of the trees are now approaching 100 years of age, and are dying, as living things are wont to do after a century or so. There’s no money to replace them in the city budget.

This isn’t just a Los Angeles problem – it’s estimated that nearly 50 percent of the iconic trees waving high above the mansions of Beverly Hills have either died, are dying, or are infected and are in danger.

Daniels admits that the “symbol of a convertible parked near a palm tree really is iconic.” But, thinking ahead, she tells the paper that this doesn’t mean there can’t be a change of image, to, say, “an oak tree and a bicycle.”

Someone’s been hanging around Northern California.

One Million Tree Initiative (website)