Root flare — where the trunk of a tree and its roots meet — is a critical juncture in a tree’s anatomy. Nowadays, trees coming onto the Massachusetts market often have root flares buried in the B&B root ball when they reach a job site for planting. The contractor then has to remove the covering soil (removing burlap and wire basket in the process, which is a good thing) so that the tree and its root soil sit at the proper relationship to finish grade. Once the tree is dug and watered in, the contractor adds 3-4″ of mulch, keeping it well away from that newly revealed root flare. In this post from Taking Place, and this one, I show the crown effects of buried root flares on pear trees and on sugar maples.
So that’s what juvenile trees with buried root flares look like. In contrast, here’s a photo of the thriving root flare on a large and quite mature sugar maple:
Ever seen a sugar maple with knees?
Deborah Howe
Taking Place In The Trees 
I’ve been extracting the buried root flares on our maples. I can only hope they will look as cool as your sugar maple when the recover! So far, so good!