daltontrees

I expect Mynors will have little if anything specific to say about this situation. I think that it is a question of whether there is a nuisance and not what action should be taken to remove the nuisance. Incidentally, I have removed branches from a yew in a Conservation Area with the Council's consent, specifically to take away a jumping-off point for squirrels that were taking up residence in an attic. As you probably already know 'Nuisance' in the legal sense has a different (or rather, a narrower) meaning than it does in common usage. In common usage the nuisance here is the squirrels, not the tree. Squirrels are well able to scale fairly smooth brickwork and to live (as a friend of mine found) in the attic of 4 storey buildings with no contiguous trees, if food sources, lack of suitable natural shelters and population pressures make it so. All the tree is doing here (based on what limited info you have given) is making it possible for the squirrels to get to the building from that tree. If the tree were not there they may be able to get to the building across the surface or from another tree. It is I suppose safest to use this tree, but there is probably no way of proving that the squirrels would not be there if the tree was not. Asking your client to damage an otherwise harmless tree is I personally think too high a price to pay (financially and in tree health) for such an experiment. The exclusion of the squirrels from the building by blocking entry points will however be entirely conclusive and foreseeably successful. In conclusion I think the controllable deficiency is that the building is not secure and that the onus and expense should be with its owner. I don't think that there is an actionable nuisance in the legal sense. Just my opinion but surely anyone reasonable looking at the sutuation from the outside (a court for example) would favour your client's position?

Excuse for once the lack of eloquence, the weather here is ****! No snow, though, just rain and wind and cold.

I think I know what that fellament.

Four, you forgot about the guy that does the risk assessment.

Coming from an unforgiving legalistic background where mistakes are weized upon with glee, I have found over the years that whilst there is nothing wrong with making assumptions they should be stated and an opinion offered based on the assumptions being valid; in other words if they are not valid all bets are off. And so are the wolves. Me, I'm assuming all the trees were brought in to an otherwise clean site and that any Armillaria is isolated to the oaks as a result because it was brought in with all of them but not with the other species. Surmising rather than assuming. Anyway my hunch is phytophthora and I have nothing to base that upon except the pictures, some limited experience of it on a few trees and a bad bad feeling. Hope I'm wrong. If it's Armillaria it should be easy to confirm up-close.

Spaniel comes from Espagnol meaning spanish, so something spanish could be good, like Arbol meaning tree. Lenador (pronounced Len.ya.dor) for lumberjack is a bit much to shout.

Just for avoidance of any doubt, the last of my pictures, with the 'white stuff' is the only one of the three trees that did not have any noticeable canker. The fungus I might have described as resupinate but it was in reality spread like a sheet of tissue over the moss at the base of the tree and could probably have been pulled off intact. It was very thin and quite firm, porous surface, more yellow on the back. The dark area in trhe last picture at the bottom is where I scraped moss away and a little piece of the fungus, The bark was saturated and degraded but I investigated no further as there was no risk to passers by and the tree can be left to die entirely.

C. macrophylla and C. Bracypoda seem to be synonymous according to some authorities. Good, shot, by the way.

I was out on survey the other day and I came across three yews with what I thought was this black stuff that you are discussing. here are the pictures. On both the living trees the black stuff was spongy and afrter a hasty inspection I concluded that it was in reality a large build-up of dried exudate, in one case from within an included fork and in the othe case from an inexplicable wound or a very well developed canker. The substance is crumbly and smells a little like the exudate from P. syringae only not as strong and perhaps a little ammonic. Study the pictures if you like. I had no facility with me to take a specimen home but I can go back and get some if anyone's interested. The third yew had a thin fungal body at the base and was completely dead from 2m to the top at 7m, despite fairly vigorous growth at the bottom.

My first thought is Cornelian Cherry, which I think is Cornus mas

I'd like to see that, thanks. Your comments about pruning are noted, I will decide in early March what to do, the frosty weather is causing a few leaves to fall off and I will hold off for a while.

I bet those FC folk are worried about the dreaded P word. One look at those black lesions and it immediately comes to mind then is dismissed in favour of a less alarming diagnosis.

Well, Eucryphia x nymanensis 'Nymansay' it is. They can be dreadfully multistemmed, all over the place really. I saw a particulary ugly one at Benmore Botanics last year. However, there is one near my mum's house at Helensburgh that is a spectacular tree of at least 15 metres, I mean to go back and speak to the owner to see if they or previous owner trained it that way. My specimen is only a few feet tall and I have to make some difficult training decisions soon because it is getting multi stemmed which is fine if I want a shrub but not if I want a tree.

Found a picture of the bark

It certainly is evergreen.

Result! I might never see another Morus alba 'venosa' but if I do I'll remember it. The eucalyptus is coccinifera. Here's the final one I have from Arduaine. I have one in my garden too, I liked it so much.

Nope.

Another caveat, these are the juvenile leaves! I am sure they are sufficiently different from other Eucalyptus that you should be able to nail them.

No that would have been too easy. This one is a good deal rarer, we have the Gulf Stream to thank for it surviving in the west of Scotland.

I found my american ident book and there are some odd cottonwoods in it that look promising.

One to ponder overnight

Bang on! An absolutely gorgeous tree.

Are the leaves unfurliung in those pictures? They certainly look like they are heading for Poplar. All my ID books are in my survey box in the car and it's too cold outside to go and get them. The vein form should be definitive.

It is not Beech.

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