I'm not sure about this but I think all you need is
tree | sed 's/├/\+/g; s/─/-/g; s/└/\\/g'
For example:
$ tree
.
├── file0
└── foo
├── bar
│ └── file2
└── file1
2 directories, 3 files
$ tree | sed 's/├/\+/g; s/─/-/g; s/└/\\/g'
.
+-- file0
\-- foo
+-- bar
│ \-- file2
\-- file1
2 directories, 3 files
Alternatively, you can use the --charset option (might be a GNU extension, I'm not sure):
$ tree --charset=ascii
.
|-- file0
`-- foo
|-- bar
| `-- file2
`-- file1
2 directories, 3 files