It has been a very wet summer and I noticed something new that has completely consumed this tree. Any idea what it is and, if so, what I should do about it (if anything)?
This looks to be a fungal disease called tar spot which affects the leaves of red, silver, Norway, sugar and Manitoba maples (but it doesn’t seem to affect Japanese maples). Tar spot is a foliar disease: the spores do not affect other parts of maple trees. The fungi responsible for tar spot disease survive the winter on fallen leaves. If these leaves remain in the yard, fungal spores are spread to maple trees in the spring. Spores are produced in the remaining fallen leaves and are carried by air currents to newly emerging maple leaves. While tar spots are unattractive, the good news is that this fungal disease does not injure the maple tree itself. Tar spots develop late enough in the growing season that they do not usually affect the health of the tree. While the fungal spores infect young leaves early in the season, they do not continue to cause new infections throughout the summer. The infections first appear a yellow or light green spots on the leaves in early summer. By late summer, the infections take on a black, tar-like appearance. To avoid the spread of fungal spores it is best to rake the affected leaves this fall. Destroy the leaves or remove them from your yard by bagging them for waste collection. If you ignore tar spot and allow the fallen leaves to remain on the ground through the winter, your maples will develop tar spot again next year. If, however, you remove the infected leaves from the area you reduce the chances of the tree being infected the following year. After three years of diligently raking the fallen leaves around my maple tree, this was the first year it did not show signs of tar spot infection. Comments taken from an article by Mark Cullen: Fix Black Spots on Maple Leaves | Homes | Green Living
Wow, thank you so much for the detail and the (fortunately positive) news. I'm glad to hear its not inherently fatal as its a wonderful tree. But we had a brutal snowy winter and an extremely wet summer, so I'm not surprised at rust/fungal growth. I am happy to hear its not too serious. Thanks again!
