Here is a picture of the nub on the side of the trunk.

I don't think it's anything to worry about. I received a very nice *HUGE* Daisy Wilcox cutting from a good friend I met here on the forum. I planted it when I got it, and that summer it produced tips just like on yours. I must have ended up with a good 20 or so. I wasn't sure what was going to happen when they started to grow. Well, only one grew into a new tip. and the others stayed dormant. I did use my finger nail to cut one of the little buds hoping it would grow into another tip but nothing happened. Keep us posted and thanks for posting this! I will be very interested to see what happens with yours!!

Andrew

I think it's "sealed over". Some varieties are more likely to do this than others, like Daisy Wilcox. Your trunk looks great, so unless the tip or base under the soil gets mushy, I think you're safe.

The terminal growth tip stops growing for some reason so the growth takes over at the leaf nodes. Yours has a lot more growing than I've see before--the one on the trunk is especially unusual. Chances are, like Andrew's, only a few strong ones will continue into true branches.

Here's a picture of J105 from this spring, doing the same thing:

This tip made about another six or seven little growths like yours, and I let it grow a couple of months to see which new branches would make it, then cut off the ones that were weaker or badly placed on the tip.

I ended up with four good new branches that grew like crazy over the summer and are now between four and nine inches long.

Thank you Andrew and Jandey for your responses! I feel so much better now. I was not sure what to do. I am glad that I do not have to cut the tip or nubs off. Jandey, your pictures really help me understand what will likely happen. I can't wait to see what develops. I will definitely post the progress come springtime.

I’m curious what to do about mine. My tree is very large and this same thing happened to the entire tree this year. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. I would hate to remove it.