Burl

Thank you.

Welcome to Project Noah DeckerPope2
Nice first spotting,congrats and thanks for sharing
We hope you like the site as much we do; there are many features you can explore:
We invite you to go to http://www.projectnoah.org/faq where you will find the purpose and “rules” of Project Noah.
There is a blog http://blog.projectnoah.org/ where we post articles from spotters with special insight into different organisms.
Look at the global and local missions to put your spottings into: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions

Thnx Mark. Sounds like some British royalty! The "earl" sound.....

Ha. Wish I thought of that one :)

Full name is Burl Ives Lignotubers http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/104...

Insect infestation and certain types of mold infestation are the most common causes of this condition. A good link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burl

The ID suggestion is invalid as this growth does not have a scientific name. The common name and scientific name field should refer to the tree itself as a whole.
Here is a link to more valid information on these growths: http://forestry.about.com/od/foresthealt...
Copying text from online sources should be done via reference links, not via cut and paste.

A burl results from a tree undergoing some form of stress.
Because of the value of burls, ancient redwoods in National Parks in Western United States have recently been poached by thieves for their burls, including at Redwood National and State Parks. Poachers often cut off the burls from the sides of the trunks using chainsaws, which exposes the tree to infection and disease, or fell the entire tree to steal burls higher up.[2] Because of risk of poaching, Jeff Denny, the state park’s redwood coast sector supervisor, encourages those buying burl to enquire where it came from and to ensure it was obtained legally. Legal acquisition methods for burl include trees from private land cleared for new development and from lumber companies with salvage permits.