sedona hike: paperbark maple and engraver beetle trails

Paperbark maple

Views up the limb of a paperbark maple along the Devil's Arch trail in Sedona, Arizona. These trees were brought here from Western China in the early 1900s. The reddish peeling bark along its graceful, twisted limbs is one of its most striking features.

Paperbark maple

Another view up the paperbark maple's knotted trunk. The peeling bark feels like delicate cinnamon paper slivers.

Bark beetle trails

The circuit-board-like etchings in this tree trunk are insect trails. I'm not positive but I think they're from the bark beetle (also known as the engraver beetle), a small beetle no bigger than the size of a peppercorn, which embeds itself between the bark and wood of a tree and eats its way along the wood.