A few of my pictures

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

These were growing on dead wood that the client wanted removed, so It was either this or onto the fire with em Didn't have a camera with me to take a picture so I brought them home. I understand your point though, if the wood was to be left then I would be happy to leave them and return at a later date and photograph them with the clients permission.

the large one is about 25-26 inches across, Is it uncommon to find them this big? its the first I have seen this size.

 

i think these first two are australe, hard to be 100% and yes the get a lot bigger too!

[TArrryan]

blimy, any idea how long it might take to reach this size?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

blimy, any idea how long it might take to reach this size?

 

Depends on the aamount of woody tissue avaliable to the fungus, the bigger the bracket the faster its eating, i cant remember how but I think you can age them brackets, like rings in a tree, count the number of tube layers

[TArrryan]

Hmm I remember there being layers on the underside now, Didn't think about counting them at the time, I'll have a look tommorow and count them, I'm keeping them in the greenhouse right now, seems like such a shame to just get rid of them now i have them

 

also just noticed in the picture of the larger one, it shows what appears to be a new brown layer growing over a older black layer maybe?

[TArrryan]

Remembered to count the layers today, its between 7 and 12, Its a little hard to count depending on your idea of a layer!! but 7-12 years is fairly respectable for a fungus in my opinion

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

it also gives a good indicator for duration of infection to failure averages which is something ive never considered before.

[TArrryan]

It would be interesting to find out what the average is, I cant say I have ever seen anything like that done before, but I guess the number of variables is rather extreme, either way a average number encompassing all tree species in their environs would still be a good little fact to have to hand