What am I?

[Peter]

I am found on a healthy looking oak tree, at ground level.

[David Humphries]

You sir are a dryad, of the Inonotus kind

 

 

& I believe there's very good medicine available for those suffering temporary amnesia

 

 

 

.

[Peter]

What is the prognosis for the tree then oh learned one(s)?

[David Humphries]

Inonotus dryadeus - David Humphries’s Fungi Directory - Arbtalk.co.uk | Discussion Forum for Arborists

 

 

cough, cough

 

 

 

.

[Bundle 2]

What is the prognosis for the tree

 

 

How long you got mate...?

[Peter]

I have plenty of time, fire away.

 

The client is keen to keep the tree, is it within striking distance of her house, although it leans the other way.

[Bundle 2]

Its a documented relationship , that between oak and the dryadeus. Take the view that the pathogen takes a while to get established and a lifetime to have the tree away.

 

Handsome looking bracket !

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

O.k as no one is brave enough to claim this one, it aint always a fell fella, but it is always a managment incentive!

 

I can show you 50 oaks within five miles of my house that have dryadeus at thier bases, two of them I reduce now and then, the others I would if i was the contractor to the clients.

 

I believ andrew Cowen (batiarb) has some more info that may offer more practical advice on the issue, if it was my call i would look at the individual case and work from their taking into acount TR ratio in relation to crown form and get down a few butress roots with a trowel if thats all you can afford to have a look at the underside of the major roots.

 

Is there any die back in the crown yet? has it ever been managed/reduced?

 

Is the lower trunk starting to differentiate and go column like?

 

is there a pronounced fattening of the biggest roots? to a more broad flatter shape?

[Peter]

No dieback in the crown, actually one of the healthiest looking oaks I have seen this year. Plenty of foliage, nice sized leaves, good colour. I dont believe it has ever been pruned, it did have some ivy severed recently and it has started to produce some epicormic this year, whereas before the stem was just covered in ivy.

To my uneducated eye the stem and butress roots all look pretty normal.

 

Might go for a little bit of root excavation/investigation.

[Bundle 2]

Epicorm is good...it will go on to provide the framework for the starch factory, forming an integral part of the management process if you're lucky.

It is not necessarily a symptom of stress but more likely that the dormant buds within the bark are initiated by exposure to light ( + heat)- Typical oak!