Tree of Heaven - What is it good for

[Jere39]

Glad to see you are OK, that could have been real bad.

I'll take a guess at the problem but would like a top shot of the face cut for better analysis. (I look over carefully every tree I fell to see what was right, wrong or could have been better)

You said the intended path was opposite of the natural lean of the tree. So by definition the side you put the face in was under tension. This side of the tree is much more important for keeping the tree standing than the side under compression. The compression side looks real punky thus lacking any integrity. Once the face was removed, nothing was holding the tree up, the rope pulling actually probably exacerbated the failure.

Well, this isn't exactly what you asked for, since I recut the stump to apply a heavy dose of herbicide to kill the rest of the tree and roots. But, you can see the integrity of the tree was only on about the quarter-third of the tree I took the face cut out of. The rest of the tree is not what I call punky, rather it is brittle, almost crystallized. I've encountered this in other trees, but never without some kind of indication in the bark or under external examination.



As I posted earlier, only about 12' farther up the trunk, the tree was solid bark to bark:



I am not aware of another one of these on my property, but, I didn't realize I had this one till I encountered the SLF last summer.
If you wonder about the crossed logs, they are the backstop for my range, and this tree stump provides one end anchor of the backstop.



That's the tree there on the right, just above and right of the large cookie I staple targets to for the pellet gun.

 

[c5rulz]

Wow Jere.

Some things just aren't obvious on the outside, the tree was an accident waiting to happen and there were no outward serious warnings.