One thing I love about living in the age of the internet is that old students can keep in touch much more easily than when I was young-via email or social media. Recently a highlight in this kind of ...

I recently received the following questions about plants. Q. Can you tell me what could have made lumps on the trunk of a tree my wife and I found in the Smokies? The lumps range from baseball-size to ...

When a tree is under stress from a virus, insect or other cause, it protects itself by developing a burl, an irregular, knobby-looking growth near its base or trunk. When harvested, a cross section of ...