the body language of Decay, The Delights of D

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

O.k, so Colybia fusipes, a bit of a nasty parasite especialy on Quercus, it decays the cambium or sapwood layer in the roots, it can and does overcome its hosts, but not by any means is that a certainty.

 

if we think of fungi as the lion the forest as the prairie and the tree as an wilderbeast we can imagine with ease. Our oak, the wilderbeast is feeling a bit... well just a little off today and the lion senses this the lion takes chase and manages to get its claws in but the wilderbeast isnt that sick and is strong, he fends off the lion to live another day, scarred but alive. The wilderbeast may suffer complications due to the encounter and wound, later this may mean the Lion succeds, but for now, life goes on.

 

This is how it is for trees, abiotic and biotic agents may leave a tree in a vulnerable state, drought stress is the major factor, but this is by no means the only stress on trees. like us if we are under the waether, diseases/viruses are able to get into our system and get a foot hold, but providing were strong and able to survive the temporary issues we then fight of secondary issues like the virus. Trees are the same, and fungi are in affect the trees version of a viral infection, to put it into anthro terms.

 

So, what does this life long battle of wills present to us in body language?

 

Dead portions of cambium very low to ground level, later very distinctive burring as a band at this point of cambial death/dysfunction and at very late stages of life a pronounced burred lower region and very small reiterative root system, due to having to replace infected/lost roots over many many seasons i.e drought years when stress was high and followed by a succsesional infection.

 

 

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

In this image of a beech infected with ganoderma resinaceum I want you to try and dismiss the fruit bodies, just look at the base of the tree, do you see the discrete folds in the bark on the major roots? of course you do, without the fungi, we can still cleary see the effects of white rot, compression failures on a small level have caused this buckling, soft rot via the xylariaceae (Kretschmaria/polymorphas etc) consume cellulose, the ropes and do not cause a lack of stifness, and so would not cause this buckling effect. On thier own fibre buckles can occur via normal compression stresses, but when there are many folds bulges and ripples, even if only slight, it is white rot or simaltaneous rot (lignin and cellulose) that is occuring and causing the outer skin to sink and shrivel like a sock thats lost its elasticated top!

 

[sean]

Very informative thread tony...thanks.

 

Is there any evidence that with the advent of fruiting with Fusipes that the fungi has been active in the roots for quite soe time and the damage has been done? Similar to merip for example?

[RobArb]

do you mean here?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Very informative thread tony...thanks.

 

Is there any evidence that with the advent of fruiting with Fusipes that the fungi has been active in the roots for quite soe time and the damage has been done? Similar to merip for example?

 

Ive heard that somone cmpleted some research into colybia recently, but havent seen this work yet.

 

generaly i would say if youve got fruit bodies, the myceliums been at it for a long while, they say about thirty years and the trees had it, but I dont think this is always the case, im now convinced that many of the vets Ive seen, especialy epping, have been living with it for many many more decades than 3.

 

we must remember though that colybia is a destabiliser, a leaning tree with colybia on the tension roots I would have no hessitation in drasticaly reducing, or even felling, sometimes even i have to submit to convention!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

do you mean here?

 

[Treegeek]

Got me gripped,we fell alot of diseased trees and love to have a better understanding of fungi and there effects etc great thread

[RobArb]

nice one, i probably wouldn't of spotted that in a month of sundays but now i know!

[chris cnc]

very informative, important thread, i'll be following this one til the bitter end!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I sometimes worry im stating the obvious, then a couple of guys like those above come along and say "blimey i just learnt something"

 

its going to take an age to wade through my library to find the right images for this, i have some 20'000 to look through and file but as long as you lot feel this way about the subject i shall do my very upmost to keep the quality high.