Fungus I'd help

[Lupus]

Hey all, first post on this forum so I hope I'm in the right location, anyway I have about 7 trees in my backyard that are completely covered with these wierd little growths and they are dropping black mold stuff all over the place. Also the branches are turning black and falling off. I can't seem to find a match for this. Maybe sooty mold, but it doesn't explain the growths. Any ideas and also I have a huge oak next to them and am scared it's going to get this and end up falling on my house. I'm not sure what kind of trees they are either. Look like some sort of oak.

 

[ATH]

That is hackberry. The "growths" are normal bark pattern.

I would bet the black stuff/black branches is sooty mold. That grows on sugars excreted by scales (bugs - possibly Lecanium scale on Hackberry), aphids, etc... Generally these do not kill a tree, but larger populations certainly can. Usually easy to control.

 

[Lupus]

Ahh, thank you very much! I was thinking about cutting them down as to not spread a disease. Now I will try and find something to kill the moldy soot instead.

 

[ATH]

Just power wash the sooty mold off of the boat. You need to kill the scale (bugs) that are making honeydew (sugary bug poop) that the sooty mold grows on assuming that is what causing the mess and they are still there. Probably worth calling somebody who knows what they are doing. Here is an article about scale and sooty mold:
http://treedoctor.anr.msu.edu/Oct09_Lecanium Scale.pdf