I need your opinion...

[Butterz]

Hey guys,

I need some help identifying some ailments on a tree I recently removed. 75% of the branches were dead, and the bark had fallen off of them. The bark that was still there peeled off easily by hand, and had a wet black layer underneath it. After some research, it looked to me like the tree was suffering from slime flux, as well as some other ailments.

What is really puzzling me here is that the xylem of the tree seems to be bleeding a red color. I couldn't for the life of me find anything similar to this online. I also found the odd borer hole here and there. The tree is an American Elm which looked to be 60-80+ years old.

I am giving you guys a link to some photos I took of the wood and bark:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=00f8f9d34f6103fb#cid=00F8F9D34F6103FB&id=F8F9D34F6103FB!131

I would really appreciate all of your knowledge and insight!

Thanks!

 

[Zale]

sounds like Dutch Elm Disease

 

[Butterz]

I'm thinkin your right! It's strange though...The bark under the entire tree has a coating of wet black mold/rot.

 

[Butterz]

Hey guys,

So I took a few more pictures of some of the bigger wood. I don't see any of the characteristic markings left by the elm bark beetle.

Here are the images:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=00F8...66#cid=00F8F9D34F6103FB&id=F8F9D34F6103FB!131

 

[Butterz]

What do you guys think it is?

 

[ATH]

Don't see anything out of the norm for dead elm...

The disease doesn't need elm bark beetle to be vectored, so not seeing their tracks is not unusual.

It is actually rare that dutch elm disease is the ultimate killer of elm. That is most frequently accomplished by armillaria which is able to take full advantage of the tree that was weakened by DED. The black you are seeing is quite possibly the mycelial mat caused by armillaria.

 

[Butterz]

I just looked up armillaria mycelial mats, and one website says that they are white? So they can be both black and/or white?

Thanks for the input man!

 

[Butterz]

So I read a little more about armillaria....I read that the rhizomorphs of the fungus can appear reddish brown to black in color, which would explain the black color....but...apparently the rhizomes have a definitive shoe lace appearance.

In my case the underside of the bark just looked to have a nasty black mold type thing going on.

 

[Butterz]

Any more ideas anyone?

 

[BC WetCoast]

There are several different species of armillaria, and armillaria is host/victim species specific. I'm not familiar with elms, but the armillaria attacks we see around here have a white mycellial mat that is around the roots and only extends a couple of feet up the stem. The usual place to id it is around the buttress roots.

I would suspect that the black is a mould that is feeding off the sugars under the bark.

 

[Butterz]

thanks for the input man!