What’s this?!

[Treeaddict]

I saw this fungus in a mature red oak I was inspecting. I believe it’s coral spot nectria canker.

Located in Maryland.

It’s only in several locations and they are all dead branches. These branches are in areas which don’t receive as much light so I’m not sure if the fungus killed the branch or the fungus is attacking/eating the branch that the tree purposely killed for lack of production.

What say ye?

Would proper treatment be to remove all infected deadwood? Not a bad thing to do anyway.

 

[evo]

certainly looks like Nectria canker of some type. Most are entirely harmless, and pretty saprophytic. However I have associated it switching to become pathogenic on stressed trees, such as Japanese maples with water stress and girdling roots.
I've seen a DARK red, like deep dark blood color (almost liver colored) in apple and bigleaf maple. This type can appear to be a little more aggressive.

 

[KTSmith]

Looks like Nectria to me. Just at the limit of the photo resolution (or my imagination), I think I see both perithecia of the sexual stage and sporodochia of the asexual stage (which historically was called Tubercularia). Yes, likely quite a range of physiotypes that all look pretty dang similar, at least at this resolution.
Some cause cankers. These guys may be more a part of the "cleanup crew", decomposing dead stuff.