Disease?

The other day, a short stroll over the hill to inspect a mature tree, just beyond the crest of the hill, heading east, towards town.

I think it is called a pin oak, with pointed lobes to the leaves, rather than the usual rounded lobes.

Google Images confirms that it is indeed a pin oak (Quercus palustris), with a key part of the identification being the bristle tips to the lobes, visible under zoom, which I had not noticed under my own steam. Several of the lobes here run to three bristles, but Google Images says that there can be as many as five or even seven. I associate to the business of odd pinnate to which it is perhaps related.

Maybe the tree is named for the pins, aka bristles.

In response to a supplementary, he denies that this is anything to do with the business of leaflets being odd or even pinnate: leaves are leaves with different growth processes than the central stem (rachis) of a compound leaf.

However, when pressed, he concedes that at a deeper, genetic level, I might have a point. A pin oak leaf is indeed a simple leaf, but it is quite close (in evolutionary or genetic terms) to becoming a compound leaf. Yet another case of not getting the whole story from Google's AI unless you work at it with appropriate supplementaries: a dialogue, not a simple question and answer.

I have not checked any of this against the sources provided, but I would be surprised if I caught him out there.

However, all this is beside the point. There was an ugly looking fungus erupting out of the bottom of the trunk and a notice from the council pinned to the trunk saying that the tree was about to be felled due to disease. The tree had clearly been cut about a bit over the years, but it looked healthy enough aloft, apart from some thinning of the leaves which one could put down to the drought.

Further discussion with Google Images suggests that the council have made the right call. They may have been a bit over enthusiastic about pruning in the past, but now the tree is diseased and dangerous: an autumn storm could well bring this apparently healthy looking tree down.

PS 1: reference 2 might be advertisement infested, but it does suggest an evolutionary battle between oak trees and fungi. There is even talk of sudden death triggered by a fungal attack!

PS 2: MSN/Sky bring me the news that 'Eight crew members on board the USS Abraham Lincoln have attempted suicide since the beginning of their extended deployment, a senior navy official has said'. Which seems like rather a lot among a crew of around 5,000, even on what has turned out to be a nine month deployment to sea. I wonder if there are any statistics about this sort of thing from other wartime or near wartime deployments? What about accidents of one sort or another?

Rather to my surprise, Gemini was able to deliver chapter and verse on this, at least for the US navy. The end of his story is snapped above. I would be even more surprised if our own navy was as forthcoming. 

While the USN is organised to the point of having a lieutenant designated 'Mental Health Division Officer and Marine Corps Security Force Battalion Psychology Liaison for NMRTC'.

I wonder where Secretary ('Testosterone') Hegseth is on all this.

PS 3: FIL may have known all about this sort of thing, having spent his war in the Army Medical Corps in India, before opting for mental health nursing on his return. I vaguely remember him telling me about someone getting ill in that way on the troopship home, an event which perhaps triggered his career choice.

While the snap below comes from another part of reference 3.

[one of a number of snaps from Twentynine Palms in California , for which see reference 4. The captain of a hospital no less]

Economies of scale.: being so much bigger than us, they can afford this sort of thing.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_palustris. An immigrant from North America.

Reference 2: https://biologyinsights.com/how-to-treat-oak-tree-fungus-and-prevent-future-infection/.

Reference 3: https://www.med.navy.mil/Naval-Medical-Research-Command/R-D-Commands/Naval-Health-Research-Center/. Searching for 'mental health' turns up 525 results, the first of which is 'Addressing the Stigma of Mental Health at NMRTC Bremerton - Douglas Stutz - 2021. Tutorial: 'Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Bremerton is comprised predominantly of military members that support NHB. The command supports overall Navy and Marine Corps readiness by training military command members to ensure they are ready to deploy and provide medical support to various operational Navy and Marine units deployed, ashore or at sea'.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentynine_Palms,_California. '... The current economy depends largely on the local Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center...'.

Group search keys: 20260920, aigoodsk.