Poop-On-A-Stick

Now that the trees have dropped their leaves it's easy to find 'poop-on-a-stick' on the walks.  That's just a vernacular name.  It's also known as Black Knot fungus.  You can use it as an identifier of the type of tree since this fungus only infects trees in the Prunus family - that's cherries and plums.  I rarely see it on the wild plums but it forms on all of the native cherry species we have - pin, choke, and black.  Black Knot can negatively affect a tree but it's relatively easy to keep the infection under control.   In the spring the galls will produce spores and spread the disease so cut off infected limbs in the winter when temps are below freezing.   Make sure the pruned branches and galls are picked up and burned.  It's the adolescent in me that makes me to smirk when I see this fungus  -  "poop-on-a-stick."