Orange Spots — The Slow Death of Ash Dieback

Ash dieback is sweeping through Cliff Ridge Wood, and the National Trust Rangers have been out marking doomed ash trees with orange spots. These are the infected—struck by a disease caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. It came from Asia, hitched a ride on the global plant trade, and now spreads on the wind. Once it takes hold, the crown withers, and the tree often dies.

Up to 80 percent of the UK’s native ash trees could go. That means trouble for wildlife: ash woodlands support a range of species, some of them rare, some of them entirely dependent on these trees. Lose the ash, and you do not just lose trees—you unravel whole habitats¹Ash dieback experts identify shoots of hope for Britain’s threatened trees | Ash dieback | The Guardian 20 Dec 2024  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/20/ash-dieback-britain-threatened-trees-disease.

Still, not everything is bleak. A handful of ash trees are showing signs of resistance. Scientists think this might be the start of something—a slow, natural fightback. The hope, however, as one researcher put it, is “borne out of the death of a lot of trees.”

The National Trust is managing the woods as best it can. Diseased trees that could fall onto paths are felled—those are the ones with the orange marks. Larger trees might just lose a limb or two. If a dying tree poses no risk, it stays. Left to rot, it becomes habitat, feeding the cycle it once sheltered.

• 1
  Ash dieback experts identify shoots of hope for Britain’s threatened trees | Ash dieback | The Guardian 20 Dec 2024  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/20/ash-dieback-britain-threatened-trees-disease