I recently gave a course on Tree Identification in Winter, in Wiltshire, which was a lot of fun - well, it was for me, as I love teaching! The delegates seemed to enjoy it, too, and we had a lovely day without rain (very unusual for 2026 so far), rushing around the grounds of the site, identifying everything within sight. Or reach.
One particular Cherry tree made us pause, though: it was an ornamental Cherry, rather than a grown-for-fruit Cherry, and a lot of the branches had this weird malformation:
At a point fairly close to the end of the twig, there was a sudden burst of buds and short growths: very odd!
I immediately said "Witches' Broom" to myself, without really thinking, but I couldn't remember the details of what caused it: so, I took a couple of photos and made a note........
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