Not a volunteer, it was definitely planted by the previous owners. They had an interest in rare and odd things. I think I've narrowed it down to a Stenocarpus sinuatus (Firewheel Tree), an Australian native, with the help from one of the California Gardening Forum members. So far, that seems to be closest to what I am seeing. I've sent photos to my local tree nursery (Brigg's Tree Nursery in Vista, Calif), who are always ID'ing things for customers. They kind have a little competition between themselves to see who can most frequently ID unusual specimens, so it's "game on" over at Brigg's :-) Patty S.

Hi Journalist- I think we still need to figure out what's going wrong with the bark on your apple tree. Any chance you can post a pic? (I post mine to another site like photobucket or webshots and then just paste the html code that they give you in these posts). Or do a Google Image search for "apple canker" and see if it fits. As for spraying everything with Immunox... You need to be a bit careful when spraying fungicides. You really want to follow the instructions on the label. If the label doesn't specifically say that it's ok to spray certain things, then you should not spray. If you spray your apple with Immunox, I don't think it will matter that there is quite a bit of other rust-infected things near by. For example, across the street from me, my neighbor has 2 neglected apple trees with plenty of rust, yet I got complete control on my property. Spraying at the right time isn't trivial though, so make sure to do lots of research now... when spring comes, you won't have time to figure it all out. Good luck, -Glenn

Pear.

I suspect this is Swietenia mahagoni, West Indian Mahogany.