Dan Miller grasped a branch looming overhead and tugged it down to eye level.

His finger orbited the infected area, laden with a cluster of buds like a corsage on a lady's wrist.

Attractive, maybe, but sucking nutrients out of the organism it was sprouting from.

"They're very, very visible," Miller, a forestry pathologist with the Idaho Department of Lands, pointed out about the prominent tree parasite.

Making it easier for tree owners to address, if they're so inclined.

"With all species, the tip-off is clumping," Miller noted, before listing treatment options. "With pine, it's easy to see the critters causing them."

Sounds odd, maybe. But it's information literally applicable to all our backyards.

Forestry experts identified symptoms and management of tree disease in Kootenai County on Friday at a Forest Insect and Disease Field Day, put on by the University of Idaho Extension Office with other agencies.

The intent of the expedition, in which forestry fans inspected sickly fauna across the county, was to enlighten locals about how to nurse their own ailing trees.

Pinpointing what is killing a tree, Miller warned, isn't the top priority.

Rather, it's identifying conditions that make a forest vulnerable to such problems.

"Often when you see dead branches on a tree, it's too late to do anything," he said.

Leading the group of 30 beneath the leafy canopy beside the University of Idaho extension center in Coeur d'Alene, Miller pointed out the slender branches affected with bouts of dwarf mistletoe.

The parasite that infects bark and causes abnormal clumping, or witches' broom, is one of the biggest problems for trees in the Western half of the U.S., he said.

"Tubbs Hill is just crawling with it," he said.

After hosting dwarf mistletoe long enough, Miller said, tree tops could die.

"Having infections will eventually knock diameter growth back, so if you're growing trees for money, it's a problem," he added.

Easy solution: Hack off affected branches.

"When the branch dies, the dwarf mistletoe dies," Miller said.

It's also advisable to switch up the surrounding tree species to non-host varieties, and prevent spreading.

Whether property owners want to go those routes, though, depends on their plans for the trees, said Chris Schnepf, area extension forester.

Most trees can survive with the disease, he said.

"These pines could co-exist with the mistletoe for another 200 years," Schnepf said, nodding to the stand near the University of Idaho office.

Miller agreed there isn't much urgency to tend to the mistletoe on Tubbs Hill.

"What's the purpose of the trees on Tubbs Hill?" he said. "I'm not sure how much of a problem it (mistletoe) is for the Tubbs Hill trees, because they're filling the purpose people want them to, providing something to look at and something to eat lunch under."

The field was part of the University of Idaho's Forestry Stewardship Program, co-sponsored by IDOL, National Resource Conservation Service and other agencies.

Spreading tree-caring knowledge is crucial for this area, Miller pointed out before the tour.

"A lot of folks in the general public don't realize what percentage of the forest is owned by private forest owners," he said, adding that's 45 percent of Kootenai County's forested area. "The issue in the extension is, how do we reach out to forest owners who don't even recognize the trees on their property?"

Doug Toland, who has about six acres on his Sagle homestead, said he joined the tour to learn how to tend to the trees on his land.

"We've been living there about a dozen years, it's about time I learned about what I'm living with, and how to take care of my trees," he said with a chuckle. "It's a small pasture, compared to other properties, but it's still important to learn."