robinia tree death and ? pest invasion

United Kingdom

One of our robinia trees had less leaves than usual last year, this year it is dead. I have started to lop the branches in preparation for removal of the tree. I noticed that the tree has masses of clusters of small wine red balls (eggs!), each individual ball presently being smaller than pin-head size. These are mainly situated on the underside of branch junctions, but also surrounding dead 'buds' and even in gaps where the bark has split.
Any help in identifying this would be much appreciated.

22 May, 2010

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Answers

Bamboo

Sounds like some kind of bark beetle - these usually affect trees which are dying and therefore susceptible, As for the Robinia dying, check the RHS website - there has been a problem with Robinias for the last couple of years with their dying off, last I heard (a year ago) they still hadn't worked out what it was that was causing it, but they might have more info now.

23 May, 2010

Desertdan

Many thanks for the information. I'll check out the RHS website to see what the latest situation on Robinias is having regards to their dying off.

3 Jun, 2010

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