Sweet Gum Tree Shedding Bark
The shedding bark on a eucalyptus tree is one of its most charming features.
Sweet gum tree shedding bark. Commonly called sweetgum sweet gum in the uk gum redgum satin walnut or a eucalyptus tree with unique peeling bark layers with whitish under layer and red shedding surface in western australia. The leaves look like sweetgum but the bark is suspicious. Its other name sweet gum refers to the resin that is emitted when the tree is damaged which is called styrax and has a pleasant odour. Close up of bark texture on a sweet gum tree a large deciduous tree.
It typically colonizes the sapwood of trees stressed by drought sunburn or. Peeling bark caused by this disease is accompanied by yellowing and wilting leaves and dying branches. These will do no lasting harm to the tree. The large spotted gum tree in my little back yard sheds its bark each year and after ten years of living with it i finally learned a valuable life lesson from it.
Hardwood trees that have peeling bark may be suffering from a fungal disease called hypoxylon canker. These spiky balls are one reason you might not want to plant sweet gums too close to the house. In addition the wood under the peeling bark is covered with a mat of fungus. Generally attacking weakened or wounded sweet gum trees botryosphaeria kills bark and displays areas of dead tissue referred to as cankers several cankers form on the bark of sweet gum trees resulting in lesions that may become sunken with roughened bark that peels from the tree.
Some trees have striking patterns of stripes and flakes and the peeling bark may expose bright yellow or orange colors of the new bark forming underneath. If you have one of the non sterile varieties it will shed not only its leaves but also thousands of gum balls. It is a strong and majestic tree. With that amount of peeling if it were a disease then you would probably see branch dieback in the top of the tree.
Turkey tail fungus trametes versicolor is found on cut or fallen wood or on wounded areas of living sweet gum trees. Sweet gum seeds and fruit the seeds and fruit from this tree are one and the same commonly known as gum balls and not the nice kind. An australian native corymbia maculata is endemic to the eastern states of australia. As the bark dries and peels it often forms colorful patches and interesting patterns on the trunk of the tree.
Peeling tree bark disease.