Democrats, meet the Tree that’s prepping to take you down on November 2nd.

This is Pterocarya fraxinifolia.

Common name: Caucasian wingnut.

Yep, get ready for this leafy badboy to make an appearance soon at a polling place near you.

Now I’ll be honest. When TPM Reader JB told me about Pterocarya fraxinifolia earlier today, I thought there was a pretty decent chance I was being punk’d. Or maybe JB had been punk’d. Someone was getting punk’d. But some simple googling showed that if this is a put-on someone has spent a ton of time posting spoof pages on tons of arboreal and nursery websites around the world. More than 16,000 according to Google. So I’m going with the Caucasian Wingnut being the real thing.

Ironically, this Caucasian Wingnut is most common, or at least started out, in Northern Iran, which isn’t necessarily what you’d figure for your garden variety Tea Partier. But there you go. JB says it’s the official tree of the Tea Party Movement. But I’ll just say you’ve been warned.