Epicormic Growth
/ep-ih-KOR-mik grohth/🌲 Arboriculture●● Intermediate
Also known as: water sprouts, epicormic sprouts, adventitious growth
Epicormic growth consists of shoots that develop from dormant buds beneath the bark, often triggered by increased light exposure (heavy pruning, adjacent tree removal), stress, or injury. These sprouts have weak attachments to the parent wood because they originate from surface tissue rather than developing with the branch. Heavy epicormic growth is a hallmark of topped trees and indicates the tree is stressed.
Etymology
From Greek epi (upon) + kormos (trunk)
Example
“After topping, the tree produced prolific epicormic growth — dozens of weakly attached water sprouts along every stub.”