Decay images

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

There is cleary some psuedosclerotial plating, and white rot in the roots, but what is C.O.D (compartmentalisation of decay?)

 

Judging by the brittle fracture (old and partial, right of stump in image and blackened by plating, possibly kretschmaria duesta.)

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

If this is a Beech i would have no hessitation on saying meripilus doing the root white rot, with kretzchmaria being old and historicly active, causing a partial stem failure some considerable time ago.

 

The meripilus has finished the job by the look, and the tree was well overdue the failure, been infected for a long long time.

[tommer9]

Yeah i meant Compartmentalisation.

 

My initial thought was that, but in my inexperience of fungi, I have noticed meripilus on occasions that k.... deusta, but I suppose more because it is so obvious to the untrained eye.

[David Humphries]

Laetiporus sulphureus decay.

 

Brown cubical rot - attacking the cellulose structure of wood cells, leaving the brown coloured lignin as a residue.

 

Noted identify remarks are the brown dryed cubical heart wood, and the sheets of white/cream mycelium, which distinguishes this decay from that of the similar Fistulina hepatica.

 

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[Bundle 2]

Completely mullered...Nice shots! Not seen the chicken have it's way so completely before...unlike Fistulina.( Which I have seen ) There was never any chance this tree could compete .

Actually...maybe once seen this degree of destruction-impressive!

 

Were there no other agents present and active?

[David Humphries]

Nothing additional noted Tim.

 

Though this is one of English Heritages Oaks at Kenwood.

 

It's in their North sssi wood.

Will probably be left in situe, so I'll keep an eye on any sap activity.

 

 

 

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[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

laetiporus sulphureus- we need to work out why and how this normaly fairly modest parasite does this to oaks and Cherries etc, for it is certainly not a common event. We must avoid asuming it is inevitable:001_cool:

 

[Giles Hill]

Can someone point me in the direction of the thinking behind the colour change?

 

I came across these white brackets on a stump a while back that confused me as I'm more familiar with Meripilus being darker. I wondered if it was due to them being fully exposed to the sun, whereas most of the others I'd seen had been in the shade of beech trees.

 

I can post some pics.

[Bundle 2]

Good.Glad to see that image aswell. I saw more foliage than was actually there in Davids post but feel vindicated on seeing this one.

[Giles Hill]

I'll second Tony Sorenson's comment about a book - there must be a market for something between the picture guides and the weighty tomes.

 

The picture guides tend to have just one picture of a bracket in it's prime and the tomes aren't great for id purposes. It'd be nice to have an in-depth picture based guide, showing the FBs at all stages + post mortems. Maybe include some of Hama's observational / theoretical stuff to spice it up a bit.