Tampa man started as a tree planting vigilante. Now he’s planted 30,000.

ST. PETERSBURG — A mysterious phenomenon occurred all around Tampa Bay in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When the sun went down and the streets were empty, someone clandestinely planted trees in parks, thoroughfare and empty lots.

“People had no idea where they were coming from,” William Moriaty laughed.

Moriaty eventually admitted he was the culprit leading a group of volunteers in the rogue plantings. In 1983, he went legit by forming the Tampa Bay Reforestation and Environmental Effort.

In the 40 years since then, the organization has planted 30,742 trees, according to Moriaty, who still helms the nonprofit. He’s been nicknamed the Johnny Appleseed of Tampa Bay due to his efforts.

Moriaty considers it the highest compliment to be compared to the pioneer nurseryman who planted apple trees throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia. But the nickname also does not give proper credit to the scope of the nonprofit’s work.

Yes, Moriaty’s group has planted apple trees — Anna and Dorsett Gold, which he said can be grown in Central Florida.

But the group’s 40 members don’t limit themselves to apple trees.

“If it is native to this area, we have planted it,” said the 68-year-old, who lives in (we can’t make this stuff up) Plant City.

In all, the Tampa Bay Reforestation and Environmental Effort, which Moriaty calls “T.R.E.E.” because “Bay” was only recently added to its name, has planted 266 different types of trees at 619 locations throughout the area.

Their latest planting happened on April 13, when Moriaty led volunteers in adding four trees — an Olympian fig, a Lady papaya, a Florida Prince Peach and a black sapote — to a vacant corner lot in the Deuces Live District of St. Petersburg.

The property owner, Ramona Brayboy, is turning the lot into the Deuces Food Forest, where neighborhood residents can grow fruits and vegetables to eat or sell.

“We want to address the food insecurity in this area as well as promote local businesses,” she said.

Moriaty heard of her plan and offered to have his organization plant the first four trees. Those cost a little more than $200. Jerry Riggers Crane & Tree donated 40 yards of mulch toward the effort.

Moriaty next hopes to raise around $2,700 to plant another 10 fruit trees there.

“We plant where there is a need,” said Moriaty, a retired Florida Department of Transportation vegetation coordinator. “That’s pretty much our motto.”

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Sometimes, he drives by a property, thinks it needs trees and reaches out to the owner or managing government.

“Trees offer so many great benefits,” Moriaty said. “They cleanse the atmosphere. They help stabilize soil. They help ameliorate water pollution. They provide shade and food and can help purify water.”

Moriaty was living in Clearwater in 1971 when he first fell in love with the Florida woods.

“We had one of those great Florida summer thunderstorms,” he said. “I walked through the woods right after it and saw the water beads on the needles of the trees and the sun was creating rainbows within each bead. It was beautiful. I was hooked on the outdoors. But I quickly found out that our native Florida woods were being nuked for development.”

Over the next few years, Moriaty thought of ways to save trees from being removed for construction.

“I soon realized that I could never battle those people in court,” he said. “I could plant trees. But I didn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy it would take to plant them.”

So, he didn’t. Instead, he planted trees without permission.

“Bayshore Boulevard, Picnic Island, Robles Park, other places,” Moriaty said. “Sometimes the trees remained. Sometimes, someone would pull them up.”

Then, Moriaty slipped up. He donated trees to the city, the same types that were being illegally planted. It didn’t take long, he said, for a city landscape artist to do the math.

“He didn’t turn us in,” Moriaty said. “But he did say that we had to stop what we were doing. He suggested we legitimize our efforts.”

The nonprofit was incorporated on Feb. 8, 1983. A couple of months later, they planted slash pines on the Palm Harbor campus of Ozona Elementary School, the first legitimate venture.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been 40 years,” Moriaty said. “I know we’ll never go back to the time when Florida woods were on both sides of a road, and you’d run into 8-foot diamondback rattlesnakes in whichever side you chose. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to keep some of Old Florida around. That’s what we are trying to do.”

Tampa Bay Reforestation and Environmental Effort projects

• Dunedin’s Palm Lake Village, where, in 1993, the nonprofit planted 650 trees.

• Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry, where, in 1996, they helped to establish Richard T. Bower’s Historic Tree Grove by providing its first 22 trees.

• Tampa’s Selmon Expressway’s West Gandy Boulevard interchange, where, in 1999, they added 294 trees.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-owned Egmont Key in St. Petersburg, where, in 2007, they brought 182 trees.

Correction: An earlier version of a caption misstated the date of the Selmon Expressway planting. The story has been updated.