Maple Bark With Lichen

This does look like the bark of a maple tree, and perhaps it’s a swamp maple Acer rubrum, but without seeing leaves and stems it’s impossible to be sure. Are you concerned about the green on the trunk? This is lichen, and isn’t hurting the plant. Lichen grows on shrubs and trees but takes nothing from them. Lichen is an epiphyte, not a parasite, meaning that it lives on other plants but doesn’t draw it’s nutrients from them. The tree might have lost leaves early this year because much of the northeast has been drier and cooler than normal. Trees in Massachusetts have had fall color for over three weeks this year! To keep any mature tree healthier, water it deeply with a sprinkler every ten days to two weeks if Mother Nature hasn’t supplied an inch of rain recently.