Your second image shows what seems to be a discoloration from the split to the root collar, and image 3 shows something (sawdust, fungi ?) on the bark just below the split. Yay or nay? Can't really tell from the images, but what is left of the damaged fork will likely fail in the future, that won't leave much of the tree left. I've got no experience with heavy pruning of yellowwoods, don't know if they will produce lots of epicormic growth to renew the crown in time. I've got this suspicion they don't recover well, but that's a WAG.

Yellowwood occurs naturally here, and is occasionally planted. I've got 4, 2 are open grown seedlings branched low with many crotches, one is a rescue from the county ROW that was bushhogged at about 1' and has 4 trunks originating from that height, and my pride and joy is seed grown from the MTSU campus about 30 years ago, the others are about 25 years old. I'm in a fairly exposed location, and none have ever lost limbs in storms, I'm lucky I guess.

If this tree is important to you, I would seek the advice of an ISA-certified arborist.

Thanks, Ken. I hadn't noticed that discoloration of the trunk! Not sure what that indicates. The stuff on the trunk is fungus. Not sawdust. Also, that limb heading out to the left near the damaged area probably represents a future problem because of the narrow crotch. This tree suffered severely from a drought a few years ago, leaving many small dead branches behind, but it recovered nicely.

Yellowwood is uncommon in central Indiana and rarely planted as far as I can tell, but we have Yellowwood State Forest about 50-60 miles to the south in the limestone hills of southern Indiana.

I suspect the narrow crotches of this tree are due to it being hemmed in by other mature trees to on all sides except the east where this damage occurred. My newer yellowwood sapling will have more space to spread out.

Sara, all of our trees are important! :-) And we're trying to avoid any expense beyond the cost of removing the trees if that's the way we go.

The problem is age. Our age. Not the trees! We're at the point where the expense of replacements is becoming very difficult to justify, and my planting of smaller specimens could be a waste of time since we'll undoubtedly be downsizing within a few years to a place we can still maintain. The odds of a new owner appreciating any additional investment we make at this point is limited, I think. On the one hand, I'm inclined to have the yellowwood and the nearby hackberry removed and hope the hickory (which has grown fairly quickly so far) can begin to fill the void quickly enough that we can enjoy the tree while we're still here. On the other hand, all of the shade-loving woodland plants in that area would be shocked and I'll have a lot of relocating/replanting to do. Plus, if that hickory doesn't survive and thrive, we've got a big void for the remainder of our years at this property. I hate to let go of trees!!!

You need to hire an ISA certified arborist. If you cannot do that, you can just remove it.

Yeah, it would be nice to think that someone with a passion for plants will purchase the property and carry on the tradition, but that's not too likely to happen. It sure won't be our kids; they have almost zero interest in gardening/horticulture. The house is too small and the garden too big for their tastes. Mmm, maybe the grandkids...

restore - I understand! I have several arborists that I use for different purposes, but my favorite is the gal (ISA certified as well as a certified consulting arborist) who comes once a year or so for an hour or two and we do what we call a 'walkabout' and go over the various trees and what the concerns or opportunities are. That allows me to prioritize and budget. Sometimes she does the work, sometimes somebody else. I can go several years without having any real work done but I always have her come to give me advice. Sometimes it does mean taking some out since I planted many of them as very small specimens and it is amazing what a difference a few years can make. I had seven huge olive trees in front of my house and she convinced me to take three of them out and boy was that the right call. I hope your Cladrastis makes it - they are lovely trees. I have two and they have never bloomed. I'm hoping that they are simply too young but they've been in the grown for 10 years.

We've been lucky to have been here 40 years. We started in a fairly heavily wooded area, buying from the widow of the original owner who had been here since '39. Her husband had an interest in landscaping, but nothing had been done except mowing for 15 years prior to our arrival. We had a lot of cleaning out to do. Wild cherry, mulberry, hackberry and boxelder in abundance in a fence row along with dozens of mature honeysuckle that surrounded the property. Redbuds were plentiful, too, but they so much more tolerable.

We've done wonders, but I feel I need another decade or so to feel comfortable with what we've accomplished here and in transplanting seedlings/saplings to the immediate neighbors' yards. We've gotten some nice trees started in neighbors' yards over the years, but should have done more sooner!!!! Life gets in the way sometimes.

I've already had to remove our only mature ash and only mature sugar maple tree in the past decade. I had earlier removed a 30-40' walnut that was too close to ours and our neighbor's driveway. Our majestic 200-year-old swamp white oak may have to go as well. We had the large trees looked at a few years ago and this oak is infected with something that's taking a slow toll, but I've got a couple of 20' specimens going to replace it and three other somewhat smaller saplings. The only mature red oak in the area must have come up with the oldest and nearby silver maple as it's leaning away from the maple toward the power lines and the street—about 50-60 feet away. It's healthy, but it's big and could take out the 50' utility pole carrying high-voltage lines by the street!

I had already been considering removal of the largest silver maple this year. It's now hollowing out and needs to go some day. If we remove the yellowwood and a hackberry now, we'll put off the removal of the silver maple for a year or two if we can. The walnut that came up the year we moved in must be at least 50 feet tall now, but suffered a surprising amount of damage in a severe storm 10 days ago. (We were much luckier than many of our neighbors!) But, I've got a 12-14' swamp white oak sapling growing midway between that walnut and a 30' bur oak. The sapling is doing very well and can grow up to make a nice replacement in that part of the yard for both the walnut and the bur oak. It has now reached up to the lowest branch of the walnut tree. Both of those trees are too close to the swamp white oak to allow it to spread out like the parent tree has done. Removal of the walnut and bur oak has been part of my transition plan, but I got a late start on this part of the plan. My thinking is that the larger that oak tree is when we finally move on, the more likely it is to still be there a few generations down the road—the way the parent has been for the past 200 years.

Now Mother Nature is intervening again and causing me to rethink the overall strategy for our undetermined number of years remaining here. Life is just too damn short to deal effectively with long-lived trees!

Ken, you asked in your initial comment about the bark below the damaged area. It's definitely some sort of fungus and that same fungus is growing on pieces of the branch still lying at the base of the tree. Can you or anyone else here tell me what this suggests about the health of the tree and it's prognosis? As this day has progressed, I'm leaning more and more toward removal of the yellowwood, but information about this fungus could make it easier to decide what to do. Thanks, all, for your replies!

Maackia, this area was more heavily wooded when we moved here 40 years ago. As the older trees have died/been damaged by storms, they've been removed and not replaced. A large number were very old oaks. This area was never farmed! The oaks pre-date settlement. There is much more lawn now than there was 40 years ago.

Ken, if this neighborhood reverts, it'll revert to forest!!! Not row crops and pasture. It would revert without the white ash that were so prevalent until the past couple of years, but reversion to forest wouldn't be such a bad thing.

i would not waste any further money on it ...

i would enjoy watching the process of degeneration over the years ...

no real need to do anything with it ... any forest.. or garden.. is a circle of life ... its only our expectations of perfection ... that require immediate .. expensive resolutions ...

it appears.. the failure was due to included bark ... you can see it.. in the wound ... see link

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=included+bark&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYuKm99vrOAhUTfiYKHeOGCRsQ_AUICCgB&biw=900&bih=745&dpr=0.9

Thanks for the comments and the link, Ken. I appreciate your help.

The examples via that Google search are great. They include excellent examples of why we had to remove our maple tree (aside from the fact the power company had removed much of one side of the tree). It was essentially a double trunk with included bark and the arborist strongly recommended we remove the tree due to that condition and its proximity to the power lines and street. That tree was probably approaching 75' and has been replaced by a 'Legacy' maple that's about 15' farther from the power lines and street. Hopefully, by the time the 'Legacy' is big enough for its branches to approach the power lines, we'll have devised a better way to distribute power.

The Origin and Etymology of Cladrastis from Merriam-Webster: New Latin, irregular from clad- + Greek thraustos brittle (from thrauein to shatter)

Re-pho, your tree is living up (or down) to its name. Poor branch structure is the bane of this tree. How does your smaller Yellowwood look? This might be a good time to consider some corrective pruning.

This is a bit off topic, but have you ever been to Yellowwood State Park near Nashville, IN? I have not, but curious to know if it was named due to the abundance of Yellowwood growing in it. I've seen exactly one wild Yellowwood in my life, which was near the French Broad River in western NC. It would be interesting to see a large population of these trees in the wild.

Interesting etymology, maackia! Thanks.

I'm keeping a close eye on the newer yellowwood. So far it is showing better structure. But it's early and the pruning shears are always near at hand.

Yes, I've been to Yellowwood State Forest (not a state park), but didn't take time to see much of the property. I was there on two occasions back in the '80s with a friend who lived nearby. The state had harvested timber and we were allowed to go in and cut for firewood the remains of the trees that had been harvested. I saw few yellowwoods on our way in and out. The areas where timber was harvested were mostly oak and hickory. The property was named for the yellowwood tree, but I simply don't know about the "abundance" of that tree in the forest.

We were on vacation many years ago. I think it was in western Virginia, but it might have been in WV. As we were driving along a two-lane highway, we passed two guys out cutting down a very large yellowwood tree alongside the road. It's difficult to misidentify a yellowwood in such a circumstance. The bark is one thing, but that bark plus the yellow wood in the fresh cuts makes identification easy—even while driving at 60-65mph.

maackia, a short story. My stepdaughter lives about 10 miles from me, on the part of the Eastern Highland Rim that drops into the Central (Nashville) Basin. These two geophysical provinces are different in rocks, soils, and vegetation from one another, and at the interface a place of limestone caves and timber rattlers, and here grows the yellowwood.

About 25 years ago when my stepdaughter bought the property, I went on a little botanical expedition. It was winter, a typical gray damp day, and I was moving across a very steep and slippery slope. The land had been logged several years past, as most of the land had been in the area, so there weren't any impressive trees, but there were some that were fairly tall. I leaned up against a tall, single stemmed beech to catch my breath. As was my wont, I looked up to observe the crown of the beech. It was narrow, hemmed in by other trees, and at the tips of its branches dangled seeds. This was no beech, it was a yellowwood. I looked around and realized this was not the only one, but it certainly was the largest.

A few years ago I went back to find the original tree, to see how much larger it had grown. I was sorely disappointed. After 20 years or so, the trees surrounding it, mostly chestnut oak, had grown more rapidly than it had and overtopped it. It was still alive, but a ghost of its former self.

Excellent! We may be getting old, but we have interesting stories to tell. :)

Well, Mother nature has intervened. The severe storm we experienced over 2 weeks ago uprooted several mature trees in the area and did a little damage in our yard, but not to the Yellowwood. So I thought. This morning, I discovered a major limb on the Yellowwood has a longitudinal crack that is about 15-18" long. That limb hangs somewhat over the driveway. The tree without that limb isn't worth saving and I'll be calling my favorite tree service company tomorrow to get an estimate for removal. Removing the Yellowwood also exposes a decrepit 15"-18" diameter Hackberry that would be much more useful as firewood and mulch. If the tree service can remove these without damaging the healthy 10' Hickory sapling that is very close to the Hackberry, so much the better.

Update. The Yellowwood and nearby Hackberry were taken down last month. I'll miss the Yellowwood, but removing it was a good excuse for getting rid of the Hackberry in the process. The guys taking out the tree gave me a 30% chance of saving the Hickory that was growing less than a foot from the base of the Hackberry, but they (Vine & Branch in nearby Carmel) succeeded! I was very impressed and grateful. Looking forward to seeing if that Hickory can now thrive in that open space. Late next year, the challenge will be the removal of an aging giant (75' +) silver maple with minimal collateral damage!