Image of sentient tree courtesy Arlington County.

Arlington's reputation as a clean, green, friendly utopia on the Potomac hasn't come out of nowhere. Potholes are fixed, bricks are realigned, improperly trimmed trees are remedied. But there must be some glitches, at least some tiny imperfections in the well-manicured matrix that is Arlington. In Imperfect Arlington, we search for and document these anomalies, and, most likely, take note of how quickly they are repaired into oblivion. Have you caught Arlington off its game? Send us a tip.

At the risk of veering into esteemed editor Erik Wemple's Fuego/Frio territory, today's Imperfect Arlington is something of an editorial matter. A press release from Arlington County about some particularly tall and "girthy" trees that were recognized over the weekend assigned them some rather, shall we say, animalistic qualities.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Four Arlington residents who really love their trees won special protection for them today when the County Board voted to designate their fauna “Specimen Trees” under the County’s Tree Preservation Ordinance.

Yes, if you're recognizing something not quite right with that sentence based on some barely-still-there-third-grade-science knowledge, you'd be correct. Fauna, at least according to the first 10 definitions that Google produces, means the group of animals typical of a certain region or time period. Flora, meaning plantlife, is the word they were looking for there.

(Just to be safe, TBD consulted an actual scientist, who also happens to be my former college roommate, on the matter. She confirms trees are not fauna. And she once convinced me that mangroves [flora] were monkeys [fauna] just to mess with me. So she would know.)

But hey, no one's perfect. My own grammar gets corrected plenty, at times even by Arlington County staff! Even so, if you see any walking trees around your neighborhood, be sure to call us immediately.