davyjones

Whilst the tree is in a playground, some sort of attempt should perhaps be made to quantify the usage of the potential target zone before spending hundreds on invasive investigations or pruning works. This also goes for the pic of the failed tree added later. Whilst it may have failed across the road if it 'went the other way', the fact is that it didn't, and is the road a busy A road or a 'three men and a dog' sort of rural lane (in which case so what? - Councils rightly won't expend scanty resources on inspecting trees beside low category roads). Approximately how many people use the target area for how long each day? Is it 7 days a week, one day a week? (etc.) Do the children still use the playground in wet and windy conditions or at night? If the 'target-value' is pretty low well then it may be sufficient to discharge the duty of care with the visual inspection and a trusty mallet. And then of course the value of the tree to the play environment should also be considered at some point. It's understandable that people get even more twitchy as soon as children are involved but when you break it down to brass tax, children aren't 'worth' more than adults are (in crass insurance terms), they are often less 'risk-aware', however and rely on adults to manage their environments for them. Unfortunately, in my experience of such scenarios, as soon as one starts talking about costly further investigations to school managers or highways engineers, you will just as often be reaching for the 088 as the tomograph!

See attached briefing note from FC for info + links to additional resources. This disease is a serious threat, at least on the scale of DED in the 70s. C fraxinea.pdf

Found this beech stump in a hedge today. Looks like colonisation by Kretzschmaria deusta also so I took a couple of images as I thought somebody somewhere might be interested (other than me of course)

I'm generally more shocked if I see a mature or over-mature native roadside oak without Inonotus dryadeus or Fistulina down here in S Devon (bit of an exaggeration maybe..) Saw this beauty the other day with a fine bit of bulge-wood formation and just had to access it completely legally without going over any walls or anything honest..

Forgot to say also that underlying soil is what engineers would define as a 'C-phi' soil which I think is somewhere in the 'loamy' range (i.e. mid-way between clay-ey and sandy texture), if anyone's interested that is...!

Firstly, thanks for all the answers and info! This tree is a 21m mature specimen with basal diameter 1160mm set within a tarmac-covered driveway, over-hanging garage, house (and said driveway). If anything I would say that water is or will become limiting due to impervious surrounding structures. Tree also exhibits multi-stem form with 3 scaf limbs arising at 1.5m, the unions are good with 2 cup-shaped forks and one that is narrower and displays a minor degree of compression. Basically the owner wants to undertake some crown-reduction work, not necessarily because of the gano (?) but more-so because this is a rather large tree for a constrained site. Implications of failure (however remote) would also be rather costly! Thanks once again to all those that have replied, I will endeavour to provide more useable photos in future!

I'd appreciate some guidance on this somewhat degraded bracket plus another bracket on the opposite side of the tree, although this one was covered in cement dust. I found these on a Western redcedar. I'm inclined to say Gano but am happy to be corrected. Apologies the images aren't great. Cheers Dave

Fantastic thread, learning much! Spotted a similar phenomenon in a largish beech the other today to those already posted recently here.

Hard to be precise from the image but the crown symptoms look similar to those caused by Coryneum canker (seiridium cardinale (as well as a variety of other causes too I guess)) p107 of Strouts & Winter has a good description. The Monterey cypresses down my way and particularly in Torbay have been hammered by this throughout the last decade or so resulting in the removal of many. Cheers, Dave

You're quite right, and I wasn't judging the previous appraisal, as I have not been provided with a copy (I cringe at some of the 'accepted wisdom' I used to spout forth so who am I to criticise?). I have somehow lost/mislaid the other images I took when I visited this site . There is a large perennial bracket (also G australe) at the base of this tree which has ceased to produce incremental growth (approx 3 years of annual layers of decreasing size). The stem is pretty hollow and the in-rolled bark at both sides of the compression fork and in both stems, with cracking extending into the stem were pretty apparent post-failure.

Only the second time I've seen Bulgaria inquinans (this one on a recently cut oak length), pretty late for this little fella methinks Incidentally has anyone else noticed an increased incidence of Armillaria? I seem to be finding it every which way I turn at the moment! (on three large mature urban trees this week alone)

Returning for a sec to the issue of forks and inclusions, the attached image is of a 30m Lime that failed at 4m, shedding a 26m limb (I can do maths, me) on to someone's forest lodge (fortunately unoccupied). Annoyingly I only have this image left! This is the first time I saw the tree - apparently someone had appraised it a few years previously (...). Incidentally the shed limb also wiped out a 15m beech and half a reasonably sized oak. The stem is pretty much shot up to 4/5m with extensive white-rot extending into the failed stem (G. australe). There was only approximately 3 inches of uncompromised wood by which the limb was attached and this tree failed on a perfectly calm day! There were loads of other mature/over-mature limes at this spot with interesting features for which I have temporarily mislaid the images. I may post these if and when I find them. Great thread by the way, having worked with trees for a number of years I have come to appreciate the infinite variety they represent and realised I have will always have much to learn!

I haven't seen this phenomena brought about by Inonotus hispidus, I thought it normally caused sunken strip cankers on Ash stems? Or is this more commonly seen on Planes?

Must be plenty of images of our friend Ustulina/Kretzschmaria deusta on here already but couldn't resist posting this beauty on here found earlier today on a roadside Lime found during an inspection. Extensive basal hollowing = poor prognosis for this tree I'm afraid...

Thank you both very much! The implications of failure of the tree would actually be very small (and very unlikely to occur) but I wanted to double-check my suspicions with greater minds than my own limited intellect!