Ancient Tree Forum Summer Conference '16

[Kveldssanger]

Damn good few days! Excellent speakers and some stunning field trips. Next year's one at Epping Forest I strongly recommend people go to.

 

Anyway, you know what's coming...

 

....fungi.

 

I'll be sorting them all throughout the day, so expect sporadic additions over the course of today. Some associations are less common, and some are just awesome examples of the ability of fungi to colonise their host tree.

[Kveldssanger]

It looks like this bench (made of beech - Fagus sylvatica) is already taken! Clearly been sitting there for years, these Pseudotramates gibbosa fruiting bodies could maybe only be accused of keeping the seat warm for others to then sit on - until the beech bench is no more!

Edited July 9, 2016 by Kveldssanger

[Kveldssanger]

A mature Fagus sylvatica with some serious pruning wounds, probably to tidy up old branch failures (only guessing), complete with vascular dieback beneath. This dieback has facilitated in the colonisation of Ganoderma applanatum, which is now roaring through the dead portion of the beech tree. The live wood remains evidently unharmed, and the crown is in fair condition, though has received a slight reduction in the past.

 

Situated atop a hill, if this beech does ever fail then it's going to go down that slope faster than an olympic skier goes down the side of the Alps on a time trial run.

[Kveldssanger]

Now here's an association that I haven't seen before: Acer pseduoplatanus (sycamore) acting as a host for Perenniporia fraxinea. I know David and others here have seen it on (beyond Fraxinus excelsior) certain other species such as Quercus robur and Platanus x hispanica , whilst I have also personally seen it on Aesculus hippocastanum, Fagus sylvatica, and Robinia pseudoacacia, but it's generally one that would be associatiated with ash primarily. Regardless, as Ted Green remarked, we're seeing far more of it now in the UK (a case of seek and ye shall find, or climatic factors maybe?), so perhaps its host range is far greater than one would have anticipated.

 

This sycamore was in the middle of a field grazed by cows, and as it's private land I cannot expect there's a marked target zone in terms of risk to humans.

 

There appears to be some slight retrenchment in the crown.

[Kveldssanger]

Almost slap-bang next to the sycamore shown above sat this mature oak (Quercus robur). Hidden quite neatly behind a deadwood pile left at the base of the tree (which is - in itself - great to see) was a cute little Pseudoinonotus dryadeus bracket. Given the serious buttressing going on at the base, which may be in part due to soil erosion exposing the root plate (as was the case with some other trees), but more significantly due to the fungi (I would expect), I'd anticipate the mycelium have colonised quite extensively throughout the butt.

 

Regardless, there's no target zone, given it's in the middle of a field used for grazing, so considerations may be given to giving the oak a slight reduction (if at all), but beyond that level of work I'd not see there being sound justification in the circumstances the tree finds itself in.

 

With regards to the guttation (exudation of water from the bracket's surface), I wonder whether there's an intent for the fungi to keep itself cool. I understand that it is suggested that the guttation is to aid with controlling moisture levels within the wood, but maybe there's also a mechanism similar to transpiration of a leaf that is employed to keep external conditions more desirable as well, as this may safeguard the efficacy (and longevity) of the sporophore. Only thinking aloud, and I have no way to back this up - it's simply a thought I just had.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Kveldssanger

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Great pictures (and narrative!)

 

Would have liked to have been there for that one but too much going on at home

[Kveldssanger]

Cheers mate. It was well worth it. If you can go in the coming years then jump at the chance.

[Kveldssanger]

This beech (Fagus sylvatica) wasn't found whilst on the ATF visit but instead the day before. I went down on the Wednesday to explore the New Forest and came across this corker near to Emery Down, which failed gloriously courtesy of Kretzschmaria deusta. The colonisation here was absolutely extensive, so frankly I'm not surprised at it failing as a consequence. You can also see the pseudosclerotic plates that separate individual mycelial colonies and the defensive metabolites of the tree from one another, though there really isn't any degree of compartmentalisation by the beech in this case!

[Kveldssanger]

Again from the New Forest, and this time we have beech (Fagus sylvatica) being colonised by Ganoderma sp. (leaning more towards Ganoderma applanatum, because it's on a dead strip below a significantly-sized wound). I have shared this as there's a load of brackets clustered around such a localised point.

[Kveldssanger]

This thread won't get overrun with Ganoderma (I promise!), though there really were some sweet examples in the New Forest. Here's another one, split over two posts, showing how a three-stemmed beech has catastrophically failed after being extensively colonised by what is probably going to be Ganoderma australe, and since the failure of the stems there appear to be further Ganoderma that have begun to produce sporophores. I suspect some of these may be Ganoderma applanatum, but I'm only going on morphology on that one, so it's by no means definitive.

 

The colours in some of these photos are incredible, as well. No change in contrast or anything - this is exactly how they were taken with the camera, with no effects.