The secrets of stump sprouts! Stump-sprouting is a tree behavior that often occurs when trees die suddenly — while it is something that can happen naturally in response to something like a beaver felling a tree or a forest fire, today this multi-stemmed appearance is something we most associate with when a tree is cut. This is a behavior that is most common with our hardwood/deciduous/broadleaf/angiosperm trees — where I live the species that do it the most are red maple and red oak — but there