As the first day of Fall came and went, a familiar but unwelcome stench has popped up again on BYU campus. “It happens every year,” says famed BYU arborist Lance McPhee, “but I guess that doesn’t change the fact that it’s just really hard to walk by parts of campus without gagging.”

This has been a running issue at BYU for as long as the trees producing the unseemly odor (who will not be named to protect their anonymity) have been growing on campus. “I remember back in the day before there were any trees here at all, it never smelled bad anywhere.” Reports local geezer Jeremiah Truman, “And by here, I mean Utah Valley.”

While we cannot confirm Mr. Truman’s claim to be over 150 years old, we can report that a variety of solutions to the tree problem have been proposed over the years. Some have been more outlandish, such as the recommendation to replace all trees on campus with zen gardens filled with rock and sand to improve the feng shui at BYU. Others have been more reasonable, simply suggesting the removal of trees that produce foul odors from time to time. While this would seem to be an appropriate measure, it was met with surprising hostility from the Plant and Wildlife Sciences department, who threatened to resign should even one tree be moved.