Cut down and bucked up a small ironwood tree (at least I think it's ironwood). I got all the cutting done and realized the tree was dying at the top, and saw that the inside of a couple rounds showed what look like beetle damage? I saw similar black marks on elm that suffered from the DED. Here are pics of the operation and a couple of the bug damage.
Trees will die for various reasons - outcompeted, top gets broken off, etc. Ironwoods are an understory tree and that's about as big as they will get. Once they're weakened or dead they become food for bugs and fungi. Native ones are nothing to worry about - it's the invasive ones that go after live trees that are the ones to watch out for. I'm not aware of anything like that attacking hophornbeam-ironwood, but it's always good to check if you're concerned about it.
My Ironwood grows a lot bigger than that. While some die at about 8-9" DBH, others are alive and thriving at 14inch. The only bugs I've come across in my ironwood, and then when it is on the ground and has cracks in it, are carpenter ants.
I found two or three siblings of that tree around that seem to show signs of maybe being under attack by bugs but I won't worry about it much since they're pretty tall and hence probably at the end of their life span. This wood dries quick though, set it in the sun for a few hours yesterday and I see water wicking out the ends.
Wow! I've never seen water coming out of the end of the few live Ironwood that I have had come down in storms (short of having some assistance from a fire). My experience with Ironwood has been different. Very dense wood, that dries slowly unless standing dead for a number of years before falling. I never cut any Ironwood, just wait until it falls, which it will eventually do. I want it to grow as long as possible because it is the best firewood I have, and once it dies it is like money in the bank, because it is small enough to not be much impacted by wind or gravity after dying, and stays standing for many years, slowly drying. If I ever run short in the winter, I know where my long standing dead Ironwood is, for quick and easy great BTU's in an emergency. When it falls, I cut and stack it within a few years. It will keep very well on the forest floor for several years. And usually has a good number of small twisty branches as a crown; those branches often keep the trunk slightly elevated from the forest floor. But even when not, this tree is very slow to deteriorate. A lot of people denigrate Ironwood, but I love it.
