smut?

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walrus
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smut?

Post by walrus » June 29th, 2018, 6:52 pm

Saw this in Badger Creek Wilderness this week - beautiful color, but appeared rather taxing to the vine maples it was growing on. Some kind of smut or ??

Imagevine maple smut? by walrus walrus, on Flickr
Last edited by walrus on June 30th, 2018, 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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adamschneider
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Re: smut?

Post by adamschneider » June 30th, 2018, 12:00 am

The red patches are erineum galls from baby mites.

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bobcat
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Re: smut?

Post by bobcat » June 30th, 2018, 8:42 am

And this is Douglas maple, not vine maple. In fact, the gall presence is one way to pick out a Douglas maple in the woods as they are not terribly obvious plants.

I've only noticed the galls on Douglas maple, on which species they are common. You can't see the mites themselves - they're too tiny.

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: smut?

Post by Waffle Stomper » June 30th, 2018, 4:00 pm

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

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walrus
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Re: smut?

Post by walrus » June 30th, 2018, 6:45 pm

Neat. Never would have guessed, thanks!

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: smut?

Post by Waffle Stomper » June 30th, 2018, 8:54 pm

walrus wrote:
June 30th, 2018, 6:45 pm
Neat. Never would have guessed, thanks!
I would not have guessed, either. I first thought it was some fungus at first.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

Jastreb_J21
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Re: smut?

Post by Jastreb_J21 » September 27th, 2018, 7:18 am

As a non-native but still advanced English speaker, I didn't know that the word "smut" could apply to small infections/lesions on tree leaves, I thought that this was a joke thread in which the original poster asked whether that old issue of Playboy he found in the woods was the real deal or not :lol:


... and of course, I clicked the link to the thread...

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