Die-back kills off 90% of Denmark's ash trees. Britain faces a similar threat

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/07/disease-killing-denmarks-ash-trees


Autumn in one of Denmark's forests, which are being blighted by the loss of ash trees to a deadly epidemic. Photograph: Jean Schweitzer/Alamy

Deep in the forest of Gribskov, some of the leaves are starting to flush with their autumnal colours. It makes the stand of blighted trees all the more obvious.

Seven or eight 20m-high sticks, stripped of their greenery, are all that is left of a group of ash trees. "It's very ugly and very sad," said Ditte Christina Olrik, a scientist with the Danish government's Nature Agency. "The fungus is very, very small, like pinheads, on the leaf stalks. When the leaves die and fall, the wind carries them on to the next tree."

The little killer that has wiped out almost all of Denmark's ash trees, and has stealthily destroyed ash in Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Austria has a big name – Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus, an anamorph of Chalara fraxinea. For those who enjoy a walk in the woods without a Latin degree, it's ash die-back.

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1. Hah! Dawn Patrol members thinking alike!

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3. ...

[HereSince1628]

2. What the Fraxinus?

I didn't now Ash's were under siege in Europe too.