Black Cherry Gum
When the inner walls of cambium cells in a Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) tree (and other members of the Rosaceae family) are damaged by insects, enzymes can break down pectin, producing jelly-like lumps of clear sap that appear from beneath the bark. This “gum” is often the result of aborted attacks by bark beetles, particularly the peach bark beetle, for the tree uses it to seal off infection. Both direct feeding by insects as well as the process of egg-laying can cause this phenomenon called gummosis. Other factors, including fungi, stress and physical injury to a tree, can produce this reaction.
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Black Cherry – well known to most readers!
Black Cherry, more than most tree species, often has several identifying features even after it loses its leaves. The buds of Black Cherry have about ten scales, each of which is brown at the tip and green at the base. The bark of young Black Cherry trees is typically smooth, reddish in color and covered with grayish, horizontal lines called lenticels — small openings that allow the passage of gases in and out of the tree. The bark on older Black Cherry trees consists of squarish scales, curved outward at their vertical edges, somewhat resembling burnt potato chips. Black Cherry is one of several trees on which the fungus Apiosporina morbosa causes Black Knot Galls. Lastly, Black Cherry is the primary host for the Eastern Tent Caterpillar moth. These moths encircle Black Cherry branches with their egg masses, and the eggs hatch just as Black Cherry’s leaves emerge from their buds, providing food for the young larvae.
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Eastern Tent Caterpillars Hatching & Building Tents
The adult Eastern Tent Caterpillar moth lays her eggs in late spring or early summer on a tree whose leaves its larvae will eat (black cherry and apple trees are favorites). Two to three hundred eggs are deposited in a mass that encircles a thin branch. Within three weeks fully formed caterpillars develop inside the eggs. The caterpillars remain there until the following spring, when they chew their way out of the eggs just as the buds of the host tree are starting to open. As soon as the caterpillars emerge, they construct a silk tent within which they reside, enlarging it as they grow in size.
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