Be thankful it there! These are lichens growing on your tree as a substrate
only. Like lichens on a rock, they get all of their nutrition from rainwater
and simply need a place to grow. They pocked your tree.

This means that the air where you live is not very polluted

Your maple is slow in leafing out for others reasons TBD.

--
Mike LaMana, MS
Heartwood Consulting Services, LLC
Toms River, NJ
www.HeartwoodConsulting.net


"Tom Lucht" wrote in message
om...
Can anybody look at this picture and tell me if my japanese maple is
in trouble, and if so, what I can do to help it?

See picture he
http://www.tomlucht.com/public/pics/...ellow-moss.jpg

It was doing well last summer, our first summer in this house. This
spring I noticed the leaves are very slow coming back, and others in
the neighborhood are much further along. A closer inspection revealed
that many of the branches have a yellow moss or fungus, in clumps at
the ends and at the joints. On some branches, leaves are coming out
(but sickly), but no leaves at all on the branches with the yellow
stuff.

Is this something I should be worried about? What should I do?

Thanks,
Tom