Hello, we had a new Sugar Maple installed in our back yard 5 years ago. This past year it began to have damage to the limbs. Mostly within the closest feet to the tree trunk. We showed pictures of the damage to our landscaper who planted the tree, but he had no idea. He'd never seen that before. We had an old Sugar Maple for 40 years and had never seen anything like this on that tree. We noticed this condition last year but since the new growth doesn't appear to be affected yet, we thought this was a fluke. Now, however, having to take down our 50-year-old birch clump this spring has made us worried more about the sugar maple. My husband and I were wondering if you have any idea. I will upload the pictures here. I have two other pictures I could upload. My cell camera isn't very good. If you can't see well enough on these, I will use a regular camera to send you pictures. By the way, this tree hasn't lost all of its leaves the past two winters. Not sure if this is part of the problem or not. Thank you and have a good weekend.