Welcome to the Mysterious Bumpy Beech Project!
Thanks for helping us track down a mystery! I first noticed beech trees with bumpy bark a few years ago. I sent photos to a few friends but no one seemed to know what it is. I saw it again on the Falls Lake Trail, part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and sent photos to my colleagues at NC State Forest Health Extension, Drs. Robert Jetton and Kelly Oten. We went back to check it out. They asked some of their colleagues. Some of them had seen it before (in places as far away as West Virginia and Georgia) but no one seems to know what it is.
Like any good science mystery, there are lots of questions. Is it a disease, a pathogen, or just a genetic variant of American beech? Is the tree harmed by these bumps (it seems not, but we need to check out their canopies when they leaf out)? It does not appear to be insect-caused.
To start, we'd like to map as many locations as we can find, to understand how widespread this is. Anyone can help if they see a beech with bumpy bark!
- First, make sure you have an American beech tree. American beech usually has smooth, light gray bark. Trees often retain curled-up tan leaves all winter. Finally, check a branch and look for long, pointed buds.
- Next, snap a couple of pictures. Make sure the geo-referencing (location data) is on.
- Use iNaturalist to upload your photo and identify it as American beech, Fagus grandifolia. Now, add a tag: bumpy beech bark. Finally, add it to the Mysterious Beech Bark Project!
Many thanks!
Comentarios
Sorry Inat automatically added a bunch of non-related observations when I joined the group... I will try to remove them.
I wanted to add this observation;
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31936103
... but it looks like I cant add observations from other people. Does not look quite the same, but I was wondering if this was a similar thing, maybe at a more advanced stage?
Hey @steph_jeffries my original plan was to join your project and then keep a lookout for these bumpy bark beeches and then add them to your project as I observed them, but after joining it automatically added my observation of a normal american beech, would you like me to leave the project and then come back when I have an observation of the bumpy bark beech?
Hi again @steph-jeffries would you be interested in observations of Fagus sylvatica that have these weird bumps on them? Thank you for your time
@dominid
Hey @dominid, yes, this was the same for me, where all my beech observations were added to the project. I need to see if there is a workaround--unfortunately, I can't filter with a tag within the project. For now, don't worry about it for now. If you could tag your observations with "bumpy beech bark," you can go to the Explore function on your PC and filter the observations using that tag. Thanks for participating! Excited to see how widespread this is.
@steph_jeffries Crystal took a bunch of pictures today when she was working at Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve. Some are very similar to your 'model' bumpy beech trees, others look like they could be in like... various stages of bump forming? Including some bizarre lesions (not a typical Beech Bark disease lesion though) on a smaller tree that also had some bumps. It is a lot of pictures. She is going to upload them to iNaturalist but she has notes and video too so I can put them all in a folder. I am having a meeting with Robert tomorrow. I can just give him the folder and have him pass it along to you if you like.
Searching the internet I have at least one reference in other states so far:
Maryland: https://ask.extension.org/questions/293803?fbclid=IwAR17QlG1XbcxgyIBcZI3ZgeKViq0p5yNbk57HvM1QyR9P8k3RhjwtExtLWQ
Thanks @amthomas! I'm going to ask Mark Johns about them and if he can recall whether they have always had the bumps or whether this has developed recently. I can see Crystal's photos in the project, thanks!
I always assumed that these bumpy beech trees were ones suffering from beech bark disease (BBD). e.g.
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/foresthealth/beechbarkdisease
If it is BBD it's been present in NE PA since the 1950s and has been slowly expanding westwards and southwards from there.
https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/gtr/gtr_wo37/07_towers_wo37.pdf
you might consider going through all the neonectria sp. observations - many of them will be of BBD
e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/92526218
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