Prescriptions for an aged patient, the poison-damaged Treaty Oak, include both science, talismans.

John Giedraitis opened the package that had come in the morning mail. The talisman inside was for the ailing Treaty Oak.

“May fear and hate become peace and love,” it read. “May poison become the water of life. And may you be healed.” With it was a letter from the sender, one Erik Felker of Burbank, Calif.

“That’s just today’s basket of goodies,” Giedraitis said as he stuck the charm into the ground. Someone else had already sent a crystal reputed to have healing powers, and it was tucked into the knot of the tree. A suggestion had been made that playing Indian sitar music would help save the gigantic, 600-year-old oak.

Giedraitis’ jovial manner on this hot afternoon belied the very serious nature of his work and the importance of his gnarled patient. As Austin’s urban forester, he has spent the past two months as head of a team of experts desperately trying to save the Treaty Oak--one of the nation’s grandest tree specimens--from a poisoning that was discovered just before the Memorial Day weekend.

The poison, however, is still coursing through the historic tree and killing each new flush of leaves. Someone poured on enough of the herbicide Velpar to kill the Treaty Oak 20 times over, and the odds are that this much-loved patient will die.

The Treaty Oak shades a quiet neighborhood street near downtown Austin. Its name derived from the legend--probably unfounded--that Stephen F. Austin signed the first boundary agreement with the Indians under its branches in 1824.

The tree held a special place in history long before then, long before Texas was even Texas. The Indians believed that drinking a special concoction made from the tree’s acorns would assure warriors of return home from battle, and use of another brew was believed to ensure a mate’s fidelity.

In 1927, the American Forestry Assn. enshrined the Treaty Oak in its Hall of Fame for Trees, dubbing it the most perfect North American specimen. When it was in danger of being cut down a few years later, a campaign to save it spread across Texas.

Giedraitis proposed to his wife under the tree.

When he received a call reporting that the tree seemed to be ailing, the first thing that crossed his mind was that it might be afflicted with oak wilt, a disease that has killed an estimated 10,000 oaks around Austin in the last 20 years.

When state laboratory tests detected the herbicide, DuPont, which manufactures Velpar, offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to conviction of the poisoner. Billionaire H. Ross Perot, the richest man in Texas, stepped in then and offered to foot the bill for the best treatment money could buy.

A task force assembled from around the country recommended that the tree be sprayed and shaded and that all the soil around it be excavated to a point where no more poison was detectable. Large sun screens attached to telephone poles now surround the tree, and its leaves are bathed by a custom sprinkler system every 30 minutes. In the most recent attempt at expunging the poison, a mild saline solution was injected into hundreds of tiny holes drilled into the roots.

The treatments so far have cost $63,000. Giedraitis said the fate of the Treaty Oak will be known for certain in the spring.

Meanwhile, police had been working the case hard. Almost a month after the poisoning was discovered, they arrested a drifter and former convict, Paul Stedman Cullen. He has been charged with criminal mischief. So far, there is no known motive for the poisoning.

Each day now, people drop by to pay their respects to this tree that was here long before the city. Some bow their heads in prayer; others just read the Treaty Oak historical marker. Many also sign the posters that are attached to the chain-link fence.

“Get well, Treaty Oak,” reads one inscription penned in a very young hand. “Hope you get better soon. Don’t die.”