Help Me Identify This Tree Killer!

LickTheBassist

There is something killing our trees.. I've looked online and can't seem to find out exactly what it is. I know nothing about tree diseases or fungus.. so that doesn't help me out much. This is my first post to the forum and I hope somebody can help me out.

Whatever it is.. it doesn't seem to care what kind or type of tree it kills. It all started with our neighbors tree.. they finally cut it down after it died. That has been a couple of years, now it seems to have killed my little Bradford Pear tree (the last two pics are of it), and you can see the neighbors tree stump in the background. The other pic is of another tree that is growing this nasty black stuff, which is on the other side of the yard from these two trees.

If anybody can help me out... I would love you forever! I'm afraid that if this stuff infects my large Maple trees and they die, we lose all the shade at our house. I want to save my trees!!!

If you want to see any kind of other pics, I'm more than happy to take them!!!

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Brent Ferris

The fungus in the first pic looks like a fungus that helps wood decay.
The 2nd pic - the tree looks more like mulberry than maple (by the bark) and the dark stuff around the base looks like a dumping of a liquid, perhaps creosote? And the tree appears to have root strangulation issues.
The 3rd pic is a maple - but can't tell what kind, so pls post pics of the leaves and a stem, leaves laid flat, at least one upside down, and some scale for leaf size. A pic from a distance of this maple and other trees in the yard, and the ground might also be helpful.

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LickTheBassist

The 2nd and 3rd pic is the same tree... it is a Bradford Pear tree... now dead.
It was a healthy flourishing tree until this black stuff appeared.

I know the first pic is a fungus.. but what type and how do i get rid of it??

I can take more pics tomorrow...

Hayden Watt

looks like a fungus, could be armillaria sp.
looks like the fruiting bodies have expired but it does live in the soil.. can transfer through water in the soil which may be the reason it spread from the neighbours tree. Causes root rot which obviously kills the tree.
Could be some other kind of Fungus.... hard to tell from the pics.

Victor Lindsay

Send a sample to a lab. Call your local extension office on how to send them a sample. Very simple and fast. Then you know.

Eden Keeper

There is the possibility that the fungus was transmitted via the roots similar to Dutch elm disease or otherwise found a point of entry due to damage. If it was really serious more trees than this would have died in this period of time so proximity was probably a greater factor.
Personally I wouldn't mourn a Bradford pear since I don't have anything good to say about them. Please take this opportunity to replace it with a native alternative, namely serviceberry (pronounced sarvis berry); the genus Amelanchier has species that range from shrubs to trees. Advantages include less wind breakage, eatable fruit (comparable to a blueberrry) if the birds ever overlook any, and several subjective aesthetic differences. The fruit ripens in June hence another common name of juneberry while flowering (just marginally later than pear) coincided with the shad run and resulted in the epithet of shadbush.

LickTheBassist

Is there anything that will kill this fungus? Anything at all? I don't like hearing that my trees are goners.

My small pear tree was the closest to the neighbors tree, and it's branches hung over top of it, I'm assuming it had no chance. And I will mourn that tree for a while, it was beautiful when it blossomed and gave shade to the driveway... I will miss it.

I have two other trees that are rather close to the now dead pear tree, which is why I am concerned that this fungus is moving tree to tree, and if they are next??? Then again... the black fungus pic is of a tree in the front yard (pear is in the back) and there are other trees and flower bushes between that seem fine???

Also if this fungus stays in the ground, any tree I would plant there would just be infected again and die??

I've read that if you cut off a piece of bark at the base of the tree, you can see if the tree is infected if you see the fungus lining the tree... but if the tree wasn't infected, wouldn't this give the spores or whatever an entry point to infect the tree???