UK Ganoderma complex

[David Humphries]

Ganoderma - applanatum, australe, carnosum, lucidum, pfeifferi and resinaceum.

A varied group which can be found across a wide host range, mostly broadleaf but also noted from coniferous species

 

Species list - British Fungi

 

G. applanatum on birch

 

and showing the galls of the yellow flat-footed fly (Agathomyia wankowiczii

 

G. australe on beech

 

 

G. carnosum on yew

 

 

G. lucidum on hornbeam

 

 

G. pfeifferi on beech

 

 

G. resinaceum on oak

 

 

 

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[Stubby]

Splendid collection of images David .

[Paul Barton]

Great post, thanks Dave.

[David Humphries]

Thanks chaps

 

 

.......the often raised question of how to tell the difference between Ganoderma applanatum and australe has been a perennial puzzle for both Arborists and field mycologists.

 

Although the colonising strategies are quite different (see Schwartze below) the morphological features are fairly similar. I thought that I'd bagged the subtle identification differences that various authors (Lonsdale, Butin, Ryvarden, Mattheck et al) had written about such as crust thickness, flesh/tube colour, evidence of trauma layers, mycelium in the tubes, but microscopy has proved a couple of times that what I thought was applanatum, was in fact australe.

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/attachments/fungi-pictures/116928d1362903479-ganoderma-enspec-20research-20paper-20-20ganoderma-20on-20trees.pdf

 

To try and get to the bottom of the issue of identification we collabourated with the field mycologist Andy Overall, who leads the London Fungous Group, to offer up field samples which he then checked under the scopes to assess spore size.

 

He wrote up his findings in the British Mycologigal Society Field Mycology journal which has been posted on AT before but worth sharing again.

 

http://www.londonfungusgroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ganoderma.pdf

 

 

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Edited March 27, 2017 by David Humphries

[daltontrees]

Very uinteresting, and I'd love to have reliable way of telling australe and applanatum apart. The other Ganoderma species seem to be less frequent up here, but I'm always on the lookout.

 

I'll collect a few spores next time and see if I can get to grips with teh sizes. The Andy Overall article gives his sizes as follows

• Ganoderma applanatum spores were 5.8–7.0 x 4.5–5.2 μm.

• Ganoderma australe spores were 9.0–10.0 x 6.2–7.1 μm.

 

And then I'm looking at your last photo and thinking, those spores aren't definitely one or the other species. No exospore obvious either. Which are they?

[David Humphries]

Very uinteresting, and I'd love to have reliable way of telling australe and applanatum apart. The other Ganoderma species seem to be less frequent up here, but I'm always on the lookout.

 

I'll collect a few spores next time and see if I can get to grips with teh sizes. The Andy Overall article gives his sizes as follows

• Ganoderma applanatum spores were 5.8–7.0 x 4.5–5.2 μm.

• Ganoderma australe spores were 9.0–10.0 x 6.2–7.1 μm.

 

And then I'm looking at your last photo and thinking, those spores aren't definitely one or the other species. No exospore obvious either. Which are they?

 

 

The last image shows immature spores which if taken purely on size may indicate applanatum, but these were in fact australe spores.

 

 

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[Arctostaphylos uva-ursi]

Thanks for sharing David.

In terms of decay, is their any significant differences between australe and applanatum?

[David Humphries]

Thanks for sharing David.

In terms of decay, is their any significant differences between australe and applanatum?

 

Francis Schwarze has looked in detail at the differences between applanatum and australe and showed (via inoculations of London Plane wood volumes) that the former is saprotrophic in nature and generally concerned with hosts that have dysfunctional xylem and in lab conditions couldn't breach the defensive reaction zone as opposed to australe (and resinaceum and pfeifferi) which could breach the reaction zone. Hence G. australe is deemed to be parasitic (as well as saprotrophic)

 

Have a read of the link below for further details

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/attachments/fungi-pictures/116928d1362903479-ganoderma-enspec-20research-20paper-20-20ganoderma-20on-20trees.pdf

 

 

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[David Humphries]

Francis Schwarze has looked in detail at the differences between applanatum and australe and showed (via inoculations of London Plane wood volumes) that the former is saprotrophic in nature and generally concerned with hosts that have dysfunctional xylem and in lab conditions couldn't breach the defensive reaction zone as opposed to australe (and resinaceum and pfeifferi) which could breach the reaction zone. Hence G. australe is deemed to be parasitic (as well as saprotrophic)

 

 

So here on this urban parkland ash, australe can be seen as a classic parasitic heart rot strategist (probably colonising via a mechanical basal wound) and breaking down the wood volumes by selective delignification and leaving behind its typical white rot.

 

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[MATTMOSS]

Very interesting post david:thumbup1:

 

Just out of curiousity, Was the ash tree showing significant signs of decline in the crown? And was there Just one small fruiting body with all that decay?

Matt.