Ash borer detected in 2nd tree species

The emerald ash borer has been detected in a second tree species that also grows in Arkansas: fringe trees.

Entomology Today reported Oct. 10 that Wright State University professor Don Cipollini found the ash borer in the tree species. The discovery was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory

The publication quoted Cipollini as saying that the ash borer may have more varieties of tree hosts than first thought or is adapting to new ones.

Tamara Walkingstick, associate director of the Arkansas Forest Resources Center of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, emphasized that the fringe tree infestation has only been found in Ohio. “This discovery means we will be broadening our search for evidence of ash borers adapting to additional hosts,” she said in a release Friday.

The fringe tree is a common plant with white clusters of flowers in the spring that is found mostly in Arkansas’ Ouachita region west of the Delta. The UA Cooperative Extension Service described it as a “multistemmed tree or large shrub reaching 15 to 20 feet high.”

On Sept. 11, the State Plant Board imposed a quarantine on the shipment of all firewood as well as other wood products containing raw ash wood on 25 Arkansas counties after the ash borer was detected in the state. The borer’s larvae eat into trees just under the bark, causing the tree to die within two to five years.