The words on a tree quote

Arborist

Somebody who works on trees professionally. ISA Certified Arborist is a specific voluntary credential from the International Society of Arboriculture, earned by examination and maintained with continuing education. North Carolina does not issue a state trade licence for tree work, so this is the credential that carries meaning here.

Bacterial leaf scorch

A disease caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, which blocks the water-conducting vessels of a tree. NC State Extension lists it as a serious disease of oaks. Symptoms show as browning from the leaf margin inward in late summer, returning worse each year. There is no cure.

Bucking

Cutting a felled trunk into shorter sections. Bucked to firewood length means cut into rounds you can split and burn.

Butt flare

See root flare. The widening at the base of a trunk where it meets the roots.

Callery pear

The species sold as Bradford and under several other cultivar names. Recognized as invasive in North Carolina, and structurally poor because its branches emerge in a tight crowd from nearly the same point on the trunk.

Cabling and bracing

Hardware installed in a tree to support a weak union: flexible cable high in the crown, or threaded rod through the stems at the union itself. It reduces risk rather than eliminating it, and it is a maintenance commitment because the hardware needs inspecting.

Cecil

The official state soil of North Carolina, designated in 1997, and the classic Piedmont profile: roughly a foot of sandy loam over red kaolinitic clay running several feet down, formed from weathered felsic igneous and metamorphic rock.

Codominant stems

Two stems of similar size rising from the same point, neither subordinate to the other. Because neither is the clear leader, wood does not knit across the join the way it does at a normal branch union, and the fork is a structural weak point.

Conk

The fruiting body of a wood-decay fungus, appearing as a shelf or bracket on a trunk or at the base. Visible conks mean the fungus is already well established in the wood, since the fruiting stage is late rather than early.

Crown

The whole leafy top of the tree: branches, twigs, and foliage. Crown cleaning, crown raising, and crown reduction are three different pruning operations on it.

Crown cleaning

Removing dead, dying, broken, and rubbing branches from within the canopy. The most commonly specified pruning work and the least controversial, because nothing living is taken.

Crown raising

Removing the lowest branches to give clearance under the tree, over a driveway, a walkway, or a roof.

Crown reduction

Shortening branches back to a lateral branch large enough to take over as the new leader, reducing height or spread while keeping the tree structurally sound. This is what topping pretends to be.

Deadwood

Dead branches still in the tree. They come down eventually and without warning, since there is no living tissue left to bend, which is why removing them is safety work rather than cosmetic work.

DBH

Diameter at breast height, the standard way to measure trunk size, taken at about four and a half feet above the ground. It is what people mean when they say a tree is thirty inches.

Drip line

The circle on the ground under the outermost edge of the crown. Often used as a rough marker for the root zone, though on Piedmont soil the roots typically extend well past it.

Emerald ash borer

A beetle whose larvae tunnel beneath ash bark and cut the tree's plumbing. First found in North Carolina in 2013, with a statewide quarantine in effect since 2015. The N.C. Forest Service describes most of the crown dying within two years of symptoms and the tree dying within about five.

Epicormic sprouts

Clusters of thin vertical shoots erupting from a trunk or major limb, usually a stress response to sudden light exposure or major canopy loss. They are weakly attached to the outside of the wood rather than integrated into it.

Felling

Cutting a tree down in one piece. The fastest and cheapest way to remove anything, and possible only where there is room to lay the whole tree down safely.

Glaze

The clear, dense ice that forms when freezing rain lands on a cold surface and freezes there. It coats every twig in a leafless crown, which is why it does far more tree damage than snow.

Hanger

A limb that has broken but is caught in the canopy rather than falling. The single most commonly overlooked hazard on a property after a storm, because from the ground it looks like part of the tree.

Included bark

Bark trapped in the seam between two stems at a narrow union, instead of the two being joined by wood. The stems are pressed together rather than connected, and the union opens under load.

Leader

The dominant vertical stem of a tree. A single clear leader is the structure most large shade trees are healthiest with, which is why correcting a competing leader on a young tree is such high-value work.

Rigging

Lowering cut sections on ropes rather than dropping them. Standard practice over anything you care about, and the reason a tree over a house costs more than the same tree over a field.

Root flare

The widening where the trunk meets the roots. It should be visible at ground level. A trunk that enters the soil like a post means the tree was planted too deep or has been buried since, and that flare will stay damp and decay.

Root plate

The mass of structural roots and soil that anchors a tree. When it starts to move you see cracked or lifted ground on the side opposite a lean, which is the most urgent sign on any tree.

Saprophyte

An organism living on dead tissue. Relevant because many fungi found on trees are saprophytic and are consuming already-dead wood rather than killing living tissue, so identification matters before drawing conclusions.

Stump grinding

Removing a stump with a toothed wheel that turns wood to chips, typically four to eight inches below the surrounding grade. It removes the stump and the visible flare, not the lateral root system.

Topping

Cutting large limbs back to stubs with no regard for where a lateral branch is. It removes the leaf area the tree lives on and forces weakly attached regrowth, leaving a tree that is more dangerous rather than less. Universally advised against.

Union

The point where a branch joins a stem, or where two stems join. A wide union with a raised collar of wood gets stronger every year. A narrow union with included bark does not.

Water sprout

An epicormic shoot arising from a branch rather than from the trunk or the base. Common after heavy pruning, and a sign the tree has lost more canopy than it wanted to.

Wood chips

What a chipper produces from brush. Left on site they are useful mulch over a root zone, spread wide and flat. Piled against a trunk they hold moisture against the bark and rot the flare.

The guides put most of these in context, the FAQ answers the questions people ask alongside them, and the pricing estimator turns them into a number.