Wednesday, June 25, 2014

wordless Wednesday


5 comments:

biobabbler said...

So, I realize it's wordless Wednesday, but what's going on there? Did someone shoot a tree and it's pouring out sap to seal the wound? And, that's the greenest sap I've ever seen--wow.

Cindy said...

Or, was that some type of injection treatment cap? Sometimes, arborists inject a tree with insecticide, fungicide, or fertilizer and then cap off the injection hole. Injection goes straight into the tree's vascular system and can have less effects to the general environment than spraying the whole tree.

Imperfect and Tense said...

Intriguing! For a minute there, I thought you were unwrapping a chocolate from its wrapper. Then I put my glasses on and wondered if it was a coin that someone had hammered into the bark. The questions from bb's and Cindy's comments were interesting too.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Hate to say it, but your guess is as good as mine. I believe it's a Coulter pine. As you can see in the last photo with the caught ants, the pathogen-fighting resin is normally colorless. Chews Ridge is in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest, which burned in the 2008 Basin Complex Fire. I have no idea what kind of management is being done. I'm guessing there are folks monitoring the post-fire recovery, so maybe they treat the trees like Cindy mentioned? Our CNPS group agreed it looked like the bullet, which could have been made of copper and was found directly below on the ground, was shot into the tree and turned the resin green. Wild.

ps - Graeme, did you have chocolates on the brain?

Imperfect and Tense said...

Katie, chocolate is never very far from my conscious thoughts! Let's just call it self-medicating... for me, 70% dark chocolate works just as well as over-the-counter tablets for some conditions.