The Forestry Forum
General Forestry => Ask The Forester => Topic started by: chuck on January 09, 2008, 09:11:05 PM
I just realized I had this in the wrong forum.
What causes them? Genetics, virus? I see areas with burls on every other spruce and none on the birch. Then in other areas they are on the birch and not the spruce.
Yep, could be a virus. A burl is a reaction of a tree to some kind of stress, like an insect, fungus, disease. I suspect you see it in the same tree species in particular locations because the same fungus or disease attacked all such trees in that spot.
I just found a marvelous burl.
It's about 50 feet up in a coast redwood at Jedediah Smith Redwoods.
The redwood trunk is about 5 to 6 feet in diameter, and the burl is a huge mass about 8 to 9 feet in diameter. Biggest one I've ever seen.
Found it while looking for the secret location of the Grove of Titans.
Which, by the way, we did find. Same grove that The Lost Monarch is in.
The burl tree was not in the grove - just in the same park. It was sort of unique around the edges, and I'm not sure how good it would really be from what a woodworker likes. But the thing was just "up there" like a small automobile up on a pole. It must be as big as if you roped 25 or 30 black bears together.