Buckeye Branch Bumps
18 November 2017, Columbia California.
I realized that there is a growth anomaly on one of the buckeyes, and it was the buckeye that had the most pronounced fungal bodies of Eutypella. The branches of this buckeye has lots of bumps on them. The other buckeyes do not seem to have this problem.
Photos of the bumpy buckeye are at the top. Photos of a normal buckey are lower down on the page. Click an image to enlarge it.
Leaf Fungus on Buckeyes along Parrotts Ferry Road
A survey of buckeyes along Parrotts Ferry Road, as it heads down the canyon, also show that the buckeyes are experiencing a sort of leaf and branch dieback. Photos 27 May 2017.
See also the post on the Stockton Road buckeyes, showing the same ailment.
Click to enlarge.
Leaf Fungus on Buckeyes Along Stockton Road, Sonora
These images show the buckeyes along Stockton Road, across from Save Mart, in Sonora. They too show the spotty dieback of whole branches, and the apparent leaf fungus problems. 27 May 2017.

Buckeyes along Stockton Road, from afar, show a couple of large spots of branch dieback. 27 May 2017.

Close-up of the above photo, showing the larger dieback spots, easily seen from a distance. Up closer examination reveals more, smaller areas.
More photos of the ?leaf fungus?
Leaf Fungus on California Buckeye
A few branches and leaves on the California Buckeye, known to have Eutypella are showing some, assumed, fungal dieback.
Images taken 30 April and 1 May 2017.
The fungus Eutypella aesculina on dead branches of the California Buckeye
While removing dead branches from some California buckeye trees near Columbia California, in December of 2016, I noticed many of these dead branches were covered with small black, dot-sized protrusions. Examining the spots under a microscope revealed that these things were some sort of fungus. I sent samples to Dr. Suzanne Rooney Latham, Senior Plant Pathologist at the Plant Pest Diagnostics Lab of the Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services section of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Dr. Latham reported, on 30 January 2017, that the fungus is probably Eutypella aesculina. See Mycobank and this GBIF site.
This fungus was originally collected in 1893 by W.C. Blasdale, [see also this UNC page] in Berkeley California, on, of all things, dead branches of the California buckeye, Aesculus californica, the same species as our samples were from. This is the historical reference. It appears that Blasdale’s specimens were then described by Ellis and Everhart: Eutypella aesculina Ellis & Everhart. (1893). Ellis assigned it the species name ‘aesculina‘ from the genus name of the California buckeye, ‘Aesculus‘.
As there are no other host records for Eutypella aesculina in the mycological databases, other than California buckeye, it may well be that this fungus, Eutypella aesculina, is a specialist on California buckeye.
This site lists other species of Eutypella. Notice there are no photos listed for aesculina; it is rarely recorded. We have photos here.
The fungus is causing no obvious damage to the buckeyes; the trees are very healthy, and the fungal bodies are only seen on dead branches.
Thanks to Dr. Suzanne Latham for the great identification, and sharing information and the high power photo of the fungus’s allantoid (sausage-shaped) ascospores.
Click on an image to enlarge it.

Some of the buckeye trees examined.

Second in the series, showing UNDER the protrusion. You can see that the circumference has a black line of demarcation.

Third in the series shows the branch directly under the protrusion, and the black line marks its perimeter.