The car-park beech.
A beech beside forty parking bays, with black crusts at the base that most people walk past.
- Beech
- Fagus sylvatica
- Retail car park, north Bristol
The black, brittle crusts were a soft-rot fungus of the kind that attacks beech at the root flare and leaves little warning before failure. The tomogram showed a soft pocket reaching to within 36 mm of the bark on one side.
That is a t/R of 0.09: far below any margin we would sign off beside cars and people. We said so plainly, with the tomogram and the drill trace attached.
The tree was felled by a contractor of the owner’s choosing, and two replacement beeches were planted outside the bays, with root space a beech actually needs.
Resistance-drill trace
Bark → depth · the trace drops where the needle meets decay
“Clear, fast, and they told us what we didn’t want to hear with the evidence to back it.”
Facilities manager · Retail car park, north Bristol