Arbtalk.co.uk | Discussion Forum for Arborists

Do the rings tell the age?

They are perennial DrewB so yes.....It is possible to draw some useful inferences from the body language of those fruit bodies that persist. Mattheck talks about this in quite separate chapters in some of his books. It is worth looking up imo.
NZ looks beautiful.....

Cheers Bundle.must read up more.............

it is a cool place.

but some years it is possible that they dont put on any rings, right?

As a general rule...there are no hard and fast rues regards fungi! So much depends on an understanding of the fungal host interactions as much as the environmental factors that may or maynot be active....Observation is the key that drives the kind of enquiry that asks and answers its own questions.....I know this seems obvious but its just another way of saying "dont look for black and white, nicely in a box " solutions....!
I would have to say that you may see this hannah yes.....It indicates a "poverty" of some kind....sort of "credit crunch " for fungi...... Perhaps the tree wins and compartmentalises the decay or perhaps the fungus hunkers down, regroups and starts a fresh assault......
It is worth saying that our inspection of trees with regards the presence of fungi is very much a here and now event.Think how many are annual for example. You need to be there at the right time to see it as it may not be seen in the canopy as a matter of routine.....?
I have known Ganoderms to be sucessfully compartmentalised. The fruit bodies appear to remain inactive.

Nice pics Drew.Are those rings on a Totara?

I think its Black Beech (northofagus ?) mike, down at lake waikerimoana.