One thing I love about living in the age of the internet is that old students can keep in touch much more easily than when I was young-via email or social media. Recently a highlight in this kind of ...

I recently received the following questions about plants. Q. Can you tell me what could have made lumps on the trunk of a tree my wife and I found in the Smokies? The lumps range from baseball-size to ...

On a Thanksgiving visit to Giles County, Va., we met Allen Neely, a true mountain man who shared his passion for tree burls. A burl is an abnormality in which bud cells have grown in a chaotic manner, ...

Nice, beautiful trees in our landscape just seem to make everything look better. But sometimes our trees can fall victim to disease or environmental damage, so it’s always a good idea to keep an eye ...

One or more vandals are cutting chunks of sought-after wood from maple trees in Corvallis’ Willamette Park. Officials say the illegal poaching will likely kill the trees. The burls, rounded masses of ...

When a tree is under stress from a virus, insect or other cause, it protects itself by developing a burl, an irregular, knobby-looking growth near its base or trunk. When harvested, a cross section of ...

I recently received the following questions about plants. Q. Can you tell me what could have made lumps on the trunk of a tree my wife and I found in the Smokies? The lumps range from baseball-size to ...