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[Quicunque]

So, I got my first elven "ambush" today. They sent 10 elf recruits on foot. Four of my patrolling squad met them in the forest around my fort. Nine elvish corpses were collected & subsequently atom smashed. I purposely allowed one elf to escape, badly wounded, to tell the tale. My four dwarves, clad in leather (no metal in this embark, bummer), suffered three bruises in the fray.

Anyway, I was surprised that the elves attacked me. I have been very conservative with my wood usage, even to the point of getting bituminous coal from traders for my forges (I have discovered magma in the lower caverns, but I am loathe to send my dwarves into danger, with two FB's wandering about). The elves had warned me about respecting the trees, but had not yet set a limit; I have probably cut down only twenty trees since the warning two years ago.

Now, to the point of this post: What if I only pollarded the trees, cutting only the upper branches (a z-level above ground) while leaving the trunks at ground level? Would such pollarding anger the elves, that is, would they count that tree as cut down? On a different tangent, would the trunk grow new branches in the future, more quickly than a new sapling? Is pollarding to conserve wood resources a "thing" in DF? If so, then I continue to be amazed at Toady's omniscience.

[Sutremaine]

Chopping any part of the tree will fell the whole thing.

[§k]

Unless you are cutting coconut, saguaro, or cavern mushroom, 20 trees actually give a lot of logs.

[snow dwarf]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

[PatrikLundell]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

Chopping any part of the tree will fell the whole thing.

Concerning the OP:
If the elves hadn't given you a quota that definitely should not be a reason for them to attack (and the quota tends to be about 100 per year or so, and even so, you have to be rather insistent in ignoring their (unreasonable) demands to provoke them into getting into a war (a number of people find it frustratingly hard to do it the pre raid way)). Are you sure you haven't raided an elven settlement (perhaps thinking it was owned by somebody else)?

[Quicunque]

It is unfortunate that the whole tree falls when clipping upper branches. I had visions of an entire forest neatly clipped to uniform height, constantly yielding new branches. Oh, well.

But as to the elf attack: I have not raided anyone (my military is woefully under equipped due to a lack of metal ores on this embark). I am truly mystified as to why they attacked my fort. The announcement was that it was an "ambush". I wonder if it was merely some band of elf adventurers foolishly raiding my fort. They were even more poorly equipped than my dwarves.

[Starver]

Elvish kidnapees, actually representing another more traditionally hostile civilisation?

[Quicunque]

Kidnapees, I like that word. Perhaps they were, poor saps. Now they are free in the realm of the dead.

Still pondering tree limits. Does cutting underground cavern "trees" anger elves?

[PatrikLundell]

:
Still pondering tree limits. Does cutting underground cavern "trees" anger elves?

Yes.

[Bumber]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

But what about fire?

[Sanctume]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

But what about fire?

I think yes.  (iirc) Back in Boatmurder (or was it another video?), setting the world on fire via magma flooding makes the elves frown.

[PatrikLundell]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

But what about fire?

Fire doesn't cut trees. It burns twigs and can kill the tree, but I haven't seen fire kill major branches without killing the whole tree. If the tree isn't killed twigs are regrown (and, in the case of trees growing in terrain flooded by buggy magma pools, the magma can periodically set fire to the twigs, which set fire to the moss... It was quite messy). I can't guarantee that it doesn't happen that branches die without the tree doing it, though.

[DoktaYut]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

But what about fire?

Fire doesn't cut trees. It burns twigs and can kill the tree, but I haven't seen fire kill major branches without killing the whole tree. If the tree isn't killed twigs are regrown (and, in the case of trees growing in terrain flooded by buggy magma pools, the magma can periodically set fire to the twigs, which set fire to the moss... It was quite messy). I can't guarantee that it doesn't happen that branches die without the tree doing it, though.

Fire does seem to deal unusually with trees, I know for certain setting fire to the surface leads to an absolute crapload of cave-ins, and I'm not sure if they're collapsing branches, leaves, or entire chunks of tree.

[PatrikLundell]

I'm honestly interested if trees grow back branches.

Since cutting the tree at any major branch/trunk level cuts down the whole tree, the answer is no. See the post two posts up:

But what about fire?

Fire doesn't cut trees. It burns twigs and can kill the tree, but I haven't seen fire kill major branches without killing the whole tree. If the tree isn't killed twigs are regrown (and, in the case of trees growing in terrain flooded by buggy magma pools, the magma can periodically set fire to the twigs, which set fire to the moss... It was quite messy). I can't guarantee that it doesn't happen that branches die without the tree doing it, though.

Fire does seem to deal unusually with trees, I know for certain setting fire to the surface leads to an absolute crapload of cave-ins, and I'm not sure if they're collapsing branches, leaves, or entire chunks of tree.

Fire can kill trees, leaving dead trees standing. Fire can also cause the (whole) dead trees to collapse in cave-ins that does not result in any logs (but when a dragon set fire to my surface, the collapsing trees left annoying unpathable holes in the surface (the same kind I think you get when building a fortification with nothing above [haven't done that myself])).

[Bumber]

Fire can kill trees, leaving dead trees standing. Fire can also cause the (whole) dead trees to collapse in cave-ins that does not result in any logs (but when a dragon set fire to my surface, the collapsing trees left annoying unpathable holes in the surface (the same kind I think you get when building a fortification with nothing above [haven't done that myself])).

It's been my assumption that the collapses are caused by the trees attempting to regrow.

There's a bug that was fixed recently, but I'm not sure if it's the same issue.