I am trying to identify the cause and possible treatment of an illness afflicting a tree in my front lawn. I do not know how long it has been ill, I only recently took note of the issue. It seems to match the symptoms of either sooty canker, or sooty bark based on my limited research. Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.
A tree shouldn't just ooze sap from its trunk or branches. If it does it's either because of an injury (pruning for instance) or an infection.
Either way, I don't like the look of this. My guess is that it has a (bacterial?) infection and directly inside the trunk. I'm afraid there's not much you can do. Either it manages to save itself, or it dies a slow death.
As far as I know, it has not incurred any injuries. I keep pruning to a minimum and have done none in those areas. The dark areas to seem to penatrate the bark, yes.
