anthony mills

Thank you tree79, AA Teccie, and Matty F for your useful replies. I did not know that Ash bacterial canker manifested in this way. The regular succession of rings of distorted bark is quite an extraordinary feature. The second stem was cut off just above where the photo ends, possibly not that long ago, there is one small epicormic sprout from it. MattyF, this tree is in Kenley, south of Croydon. A segment of at leat 25% of the basal circumference is dead, I was pulling bits of bark off looking for Armillaria. It is though on the side the tree is leaning towards, so the tension side is intact with a slight indication of reaction growth - an area that looked like newer, smoother bark. Another, not at all clear photo of the base attached. What effect does canker have on the wood that makes it desirable when milled? Is it similar to a ripple from buckling, or like burr wood?

Hello all, first post here, and it's a request for assistance in ID, please. I was asked [as a Tree Warden] to look at an Ash, the enquirer thought it might be Chalara [or Hymenocyphus now], until I sent her some info. But when I went there I saw a tree with what looked like fibre buckling like I've never seen. I wondered about Inonotus [as a soft rot] but it's way down the stem and not at the top. There is some exudate but this has clearly been going on for decades. No visible FB's. Some white dusting all down one side of the tree. Clearly dead on one side at the base. Wish I'd taken a hammer, took a glass instead to look for tiny white fungi on the petioles... This must be characteristic of some particular fungal activity, surely, but which one, please? The modification of the bark looks almost like that with Fistulina, and extends way up to above the upper crown break. I tried to make a case for reduction to within falling distance of the neighbours house and retaining at least some of such an extraordinary example of buckling, but the [newish] owner was not impressed and seemingly just wanted my presence to justify a decision to fell, not my original advice to have some investigation of the internal state of the wood, a situation I've no doubt you are familiar with... Whoever put those fence posts in deserves to be tied to one and left there!