At first glance, the iconic elm trees that line the sidewalks at University Park don't do much more than provide scenery during the walk to class or shade on a sunny day.

But for some, they represent a storied Penn State tradition -- one that has recently been thrown into jeopardy with the discovery of the fatal, incurable elm yellows disease in 47 elms on campus.

On Monday, university officials and alumni weighed in on the fact that the fast-spreading disease could claim all the elms -- about 290 -- on campus.

Some of the infected elms on campus have already been taken down, university spokesman Mike Bezilla said Monday.

The first elms on campus were planted in the 1890s, Bezilla said.

There was also another major planting in the 1920s, he added.

This isn't the first time the elms on campus have been threatened by disease; as early as 1968, the university began removing what would become "a sizeable figure" of elms infected with Dutch elm disease, Bezilla said.

But this latest infection of elm yellows has the university worried.

"With Dutch elm, you can stop the spread," Bezilla said. "We can't even control elm yellows at this point, so far."

The university has set up a Web site, elmyellows.psu.edu, to spread information about the elm situation on campus; several commenters on the site expressed dismay at the news.

"This is awful news. Awful," one wrote.

Another wrote he or she "can't imagine the campus without them."

Former Penn State Trustee Ben Novak, Class of 1965, said the university must "affirm that ... all efforts will be taken to replant the elms."

"We don't want the elms to disappear and be forgotten," Novak said.

"So many customs and traditions are disappearing so rapidly," he added.

The Office of Physical Plant plans to replace the elms with various new trees.

"The concept is diversity," Derek Kalp, an OPP lan dscape designer, said Thursday. Replacement trees could include white oaks, red oaks and sycamores, among others.

"We hope that by keeping them in the same arrangement, we will have the same visual effect," Kalp said.

Gary Moorman, a professor of plant pathology at Penn State, said the prognosis for the elms on campus is "really bleak right now."

The disease has spread from four elms outside Penn State President Graham Spanier's house last year to 47 elms across campus this year, and it is likely that more trees have become infected since the university last tested for the disease earlier this fall, Moorman said.

And though the university has found 11 species of insects on campus that have apparently fed on infected elms, they have yet to find the insect known to spread the disease -- the whitebanded elm leafhopper, Moorman said.

"One of the questions we have that we'll probably never be able to answer is, 'How did it show up here?' " Moorman said.

If the elm trees go, the campus atmosphere will change, Moorman said.

"The only thing that makes this campus beautiful is large trees softening the harsh lines of the buildings," he said.