That looks like a fungus such as fireblight.

Dax

Ug,

yes it does rather resemble the leaf curl. About 300 feet STRAIGHT uphill I had a......what was that....Pear(?) tree I cut down a few years back due to what one of my friends called fire blight. Whole thing just shriveled up for a couple straight years.

Now I was doing some reading and found one site that claims fire blight only occurs in the rosacre family? Is that considered true?

This has me a little concerned now since I had to cut down one tree due to this problem. Removing all kinds of affected branches from that pear did not help so I'm not real thrilled with that course of action.

Here is a link that might be useful: Question 3 contains the part about fireblight only in rosacre

Fire blight is caused by a bacterium. One learns never to say never in plant pathology. Pathogens evolve too! But thus far, this disease has been known to only effect the rosacea. I think that can safely be ruled out.

Any herbicide applications recently? High ozone alerts? Other than that, you'll probably have to take a sample to a diagnostic lab to pin down. Metasequioa, being a relatively new thing in horticulture/forestry, may not have a good disease profile available. But a good lab should be able to isolate the fungus, if there is any.

+oM

Taking a sample in seems enlightening enough. I've never done that before. Is the correct procedure to call my county forestry extension office? Did that once, fellow was helpful enough with EAB advice.

Did just put together the pieces that this is one of the cooler July's on record, rainfall has been good, and the tree has done this on a more limited basis in past years where I just blamed it on "dry needles" or whatever.