Chinese elm is a very hardy species.
This one is stone dead, but the lower base is certainly unusual. There was no fruiting bodies.
There seemed to be a lot of ants hanging around, lots of little holes, and the texture of the brown cruddy stuff was similar to that of borer frass. Embedded in this stuff were like shells of flying ants or something plus the odd leaf etc. Makes me think that it must have been pretty soft.
The tree is only young, is actually in a good spot for water as the garage roof down pipe is only about 2m up hill from it. The DBH is maybe only 250mm and the height maybe 8m.
I have a hunch but I'll save it for other opinions.
And it's a climb only for removal.
