Severe cold temperatures hitting much of the country this week could branch out − literally.

John Seiler was strolling across Virginia Tech’s campus with his students Thursday morning when something stopped them in their tracks: a sweet cherry tree with an unusual jagged scar running along it...

"It’s more of a tree crack, but they will do that," said John Ball, a professor of agronomy, horticulture and plant science at South Dakota State University in Brookings, and an expert in tree physiol...