Unless they're rotted, it's a change of color in the skin. Due to exposure of direct sunlight. Eat & be happy.

Oh boy. I lost my entire reply by hitting the Back button after hitting Preview Message. In any event, THANK YOU SO VERY VERY much for your replies! In the meantime, I dug up an older pruning book of mine which dealt with the issue of losing a leader and it also had the same advice as you gave me here. So I gather that I should only be really ticked off and not panicked. :-) I appreciate it most sincerely. Though I would prefer not to have to deal with this at all! Regarding TyTy. I did look for them in Dave's Garden 'Scoop' section and they were not listed. Naively, I supposed that meant that they did mostly local business or something. In other words, I saw it as neutral/benign instead of a reason to be wary. The reason they caught my attention was that they were offering Wisteria trained as standards. They are very very pricey here in New England and quite rare. (A place in CT sells a few-year-old Wisteria 'trees' for several hundred apiece.) The ones from TyTy were not a pittance but they were not exorbitant, either. It arrived and it looks great. It surely is a Wisteria vine trained as a standard! While I have tied it up as of today, it's weathered a severe New England winter -- a major Nor'easter just last week -- standing on its own. While on the site, I decided to order some other trees because they had larger, more mature trees available at a competitive price. Again, not prices so low they were unrealistic, but competitive. So, I ordered and I was very happy. The trees very very very well-packaged and stuffed with paper strips that kept them tight but with plenty of air circulation, plenty of hydrating gel on the roots and roots structures that look very nicely established. Also, as I mentioned, they were the only ones to be 'generous in their accuracy' rather than just 'technically accurate.' (just came up with that phrase and I think I'll keep it.) My experience has been that when ordering a specimen listed as bieng 3-7' in height, it usually arrives at 3'-1/16th.' These from TyTy are actually a few years old and taller than I, and I'm about 6-2/6-3 with my work boots on. Likewise, all the trees appear to be the variety I ordered and which they are labeled. But now I am worried! Fingers crossed for when warm weather strikes us here and these plants start to wake up! Sincerest thanks again!!!!! -- Jay Here is a link that might be useful: Motto

And - the latest revision of their ever popular Gardening Book looks like it was just released Feb 2012 as well! I've got their last two versions, but they seem to add really neat stuff each time, so I'm sure I'll pick up this latest revision as well...

Thanks, love to have natives, but this is one I'd prefer to keep away from my son and dog...