If it’s not verticillium, what is it?

[John_KAYS]

What is this?
This was an isolated area in a red maple crown. The rest of the tree looked good. I couldn’t find any green coloring in the cambium and the leaves don’t quite look like verticillium wilt. Is this just obvious and I’m blanking at the moment?

 

[John_KAYS]

Sorry my phone wouldn’t post these others.

 

[JD3000]

Look at some symptomatic cuttings in cross section for darkening in the xylem.

Also look for cankers on branches and stems

 

[John_KAYS]

The cuttings all looked clean even in the worst sections. It looked healthy other than the leaf size, and shape (rippled), and the fact that the tips of the branches had dropped all the leaves but were still very green twigs. The leaf growth was all weirdly clustered too. I didn't see any cankers. This couldn't be from girdled roots or something like that, could it?

 

[oldoakman]

Possibly herbicide damage.?

 

[JD3000]

My thought as well, hard to tell from the pics though.

 

[JD3000]

Wait, is one a maple and one a cherry???

 

[John_KAYS]

Wait, is one a maple and one a cherry???

Sorry, there is brush from an unaffected crabapple in some of the photos.

It was the top of a few of the leads in a spreading 25' maple. The affected areas were mostly localized. I'm sorry I didn't get a photo of the tree...

 

[ATH]

Looks more like herbicide to me. Verticillium would be causing leaf color change to brown, not just the curl.

 

[John_KAYS]

Sounds like a likely culprit.

Thanks! This is very educational. I don't know that I have seen this before, but now I know what to look for.