DEFECTIVE SHADE TREES MENACE LIFE 



BY T. E. SNYDER 



SPECIALIST IN FOREST ENTOMOLOGY, BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



EACH year throughout the country there are ex- 

 perienced heavy tropical rainstorms, accompanied 

 by high winds, sharp lightning and torrential 

 downpours of rain, often also hail. These severe storms 

 are seasonal, usually appearing in the late afternoon, and 

 leave in their wake a trail of down telephone and tele- 



leaved and evergreen trees, as well as to telephone and 

 telegraph poles and railroad ties which are placed in 

 earth ballast. It is a general feeder. 



This injurious insect occurs in Canada as well as in 

 the United States. From its known widespread distri- 

 bution there is little doubt but that it occurs over the 

 greater part of temperate North America. 



Trees attacked by this borer, including the living sap- 

 wood and dead heartwood of both deciduous and ever- 

 green trees, are pine, juniper or red cedar, white cedar, 



ADULT BEETLES OF THE PARANDRA BORER ENLARGED FOUR 

 TIMES IN SIZE. THESE INSECTS ARE WINGED AND LAY THE 

 EGGS WHICH HATCH INTO THE BORERS IN THE SMALL IN- 

 SERT IN* THE LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER THE BEETLES ARE 

 SHOWN NATURAL SIZE 



graph poles, tangled wires, damage to buildings and up- 

 rooted and broken off trees. It is not infrequent that 

 there is a loss of life. 



The greater portion of such damage can not be pre- 

 vented by human foresight, but much of the damage to 

 park and street trees can be prevented by better care of 

 the trees. A tree survey should be made at frequent in- 

 tervals to locate and plot the defective trees, those with 

 dead branches and unsound trunks those either decayed 

 or infested with borers. It is such trees that are broken 

 off during heavy wind storms, sometimes with loss of 

 human life, and commonly with damage to property. 



During the past eleven years careful examinations at 

 Washington of trees broken off during storms and litter- 

 ing the streets and blocking traffic have revealed that one 

 borer is directly responsible for most of this damage by 

 weakening the tree trunks and causing them to snap off. 

 This is the Parandra borer (Parandra brunnea Fab.) an 

 insect very injurious to a great variety of both broad 



THIS IS A GOOD PICTURE OF THE BURROWS OF THE PARAN- 

 DRA BORER IN A MAPLE TREE IN MARYLAND, AND IT SHOWS 

 THE BORERS AND THE PUPAE, OR RESTING STAGE 



black walnut, butternut, hickory, willow, beech, chestnut, 

 chinquapin, oak, elm, tulip-poplar, apple, pear, plum, 

 wild and cultivated cherry, locust, Ailanthus, soft maple, 

 basswood, cottonwood, black ash, sweet gum, and 

 Paulonia. The Parandra borer belongs to the family 



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