Why Knot?

I don't know the whys of this lump formation. Will await a more knowledgeable poster..

cool

Burl.

There are wood-workers who go crazy for burled wood.



(nice scrabble word)

if it were covered with a species of climbing evergreen woody plant, would it be called a burl ives



, all together now, b double o

<snort>

Are you asking why trees form knots? I'll assume you are. When a tree limb dies off the tree grows up around the area and thus forms a type of scar - the knot.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this tree has been knotty.


<looks around and backs quickly away>

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't recognize baby burls. Consider the number of burl coffee tables in waiting around Santa Cruz..

One more photograph.

alex, I am not of the trees.

of what species is this knargly guy?

Hello Rockhead, how is the truck these days?
No foliage to help me, but I would guess that it is a Bur Oak Tree. A majestic old one, at that.

Well, that might be a clue - as when I saw burls there were around the Santa Cruz (california) area. Maybe you could google from that...

Or, of course, google 'burls'..

but if you learn stuff, come back and tell us.

Frequently plants develop galls (woody growths) as a response to insect or fungal attack. I can't identify the tree in question so you'll need to check it out yourself. Although the growths are on the trunk of the tree I suspect that they are growing on twigs that would be forming on the trunk at these points.

Another answer is that plants can develop conditions like 'corkiness' or just abnormal growth. If the overall health of the tree is good then I would probably just ignore it - removing the whole tree is only recommended if there is an infestation that could spread or the damage to the tree is making it dangerous (dropping limbs).

Well, that tree is obviously an Acacia.

The knots are the consequence of cork cambium and can be provoked by stress.

Francis - a snow-tolerant acacia? Don't think so - I first picked it as a poplar - plenty of those are able to cope with winters in Nth Dakota. I'd then pick a Gleditsia.... again they are not bothered by extreme cold.

For sure, Mr. quiet H2O, acacias are snow tolerant, as I can state by my own that are currently under snow.

Among the Acacias family, many of them can stand well below 0°C temperatures, especially the ones with that unmistakable bark.

Fill me in F-man. I know that the majority of Acacia sp. are Australian natives. The rest are either African (up as far as Egypt) and there are some central American species. I am just probably more used to wattles remaining as a shrub or a low, wide-spreading tree....

Curiously enough - the problem resolves itself. Acacias are notoriously short-lived - 15 years is about the average for a garden plant in Eastern Australia.

Well, as usual it's a matter of detail.

You are used to acacias as shrubs and I'm used acacias as trees.

Look here what we call acacias, that last for a "while" longer than 15 years.

I have one in my garden that is older than 100 years.

The fissured bark looks to me to be that of a poplar, which had witch's brooms
when the tree was younger.