Crow’s Nest: Scary stuff

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

Happy Halloween! In the spirit of the event here’s a photo from the woods for you to consider. What do you you see here?

Mountain troll, gnome, or orc?

Or Darth Vader eating spinach? (Wait, does Darth Vader even eat?)

Now, for something truly scary, the spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) on silver maple here. Their feeding on the sap of the tree, by penetrating the bark to reach the phloem, is causing these trees to decline.  The Penn State Cooperative Extension site on spotted lanternfly mentions so-called “hot trees”—those that seem to attract more than their share of lantern flies—and I think we have some in our silver maples (we’ve long since eliminated their preferred host, Ailanthus altissima). I’d hate to lose these specimen trees and may need to re-think our strategies for managing lantern flies.