the body language of Decay, The Delights of D

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

could spend days in that place:thumbup:

 

got a bit snap happy tonight though, next time going to focus on quality of finds (more time looking) might even take the kit and climb some i haven't already climbed:biggrin:

 

be careful climbing old vets of this level of decay, if in doubt give us a shout and I will bring my kit too!

[RobArb]

i might hold you to that:biggrin:

 

there's some that are a definate no no for climbing but there's still some nice healthy specimens

 

does seem though like every year there are a couple of massive summer limb drops from these beasties!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

i might hold you to that:biggrin:

 

there's some that are a definate no no for climbing but there's still some nice healthy specimens

 

does seem though like every year there are a couple of massive summer limb drops from these beasties!

 

watch out for P. aurivella in the coming autumn end of summer, its a stonking looking fungi:thumbup:

[RobArb]

on another note found this on the big dead trunk, was only small 2/3 weeks ago last time i was there and now seems to be either eaten or in decline

 

do you know what it is?

 

ps any ideas on the little beasties making it there home also?

[RobArb]

watch out for P. aurivella in the coming autumn end of summer, its a stonking looking fungi:thumbup:

 

How does this scalycap like its climate?

 

I mean how does it differ down there to up here as i know its only a couple of degrees but its cooler and wetter here in ther north west?

 

so will it grow up here?

[RobArb]

iv'e seen P. squarrosa up here but never aurivella

[RobRainford]

on another note found this on the big dead trunk, was only small 2/3 weeks ago last time i was there and now seems to be either eaten or in decline

 

do you know what it is?

 

ps any ideas on the little beasties making it there home also?

 

Oyster mushroom. Pleurotus ostreatus. If my memory serves me well.

 

I've got one in my container that I took off a Sambucus nigra a while ago. It's dried out and still looks half decent

[Fungus]

iv'e seen P. squarrosa up here but never aurivella

 

Rob,

To spot Pholiota aurivella you have to look high up the tree, as it fruits from cavities behind old wounds of pruined branches, to see P. squarrosa down at the base of the tree, as it is a root parasite and a sub-surface wood decomposer.

[Fungus]

A few snaps from the weekend out in the woods at Zigzag Hill, Selbourne.

 

There is more to see, then just the body language of the tree, the photo's also show the body language of a perennial Polypore, i.e. of Ganoderma lipsiense on beech.

Once the mycelium has "consumed" most of the cellulose of the heartwood of the still upright standing tree for producing a new layer of tubes every year, the from that moment on developed layers - the whitish layer in the photo's - "withdraw" and only partially cover the surface of the last formed old layer.

To build these layers, the mycelium does not decompose much wood anymore, but forms them by "recycling" and reusing the inner (sterile) tissues, which makes the fruitbody hollow and reduces the risk of the fungus breaking off under its weight while the tree is still standing.

This phenomenon, called "emergency reproduction", which often can be seen with perennial Ganoderma species and with Fomes fomentarius, i.e. with species causing white rot with selective delignification ("brittle rot" : see my Album), is an indication of the risk of the short term breaking and falling of the tree.

After the tree falls and the trunk makes soil contact, the moisture it takes up triggers the mycelium to reactivate and form new fruitbodies, which sometimes grow at right angles (geotrophism) on the old ones. The mycelium then stops being (necrotrophic) parasitic and becomes entirely saprotrophic, together with many other macrofungi recycling what is left of the tree in order to close the energy or food chain of the ecosystem of the tree and reinvest all the material invested in the old tree in the ecosystems of its offspring.

Edited May 3, 2011 by Fungus

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Rob,

To spot Pholiota aurivella you have to look high up the tree, as it fruits from cavities behind old wounds of pruined branches, to see P. squarrosa down at the base of the tree, as it is a root parasite and a sub-surface wood decomposer.

 

With fungi, we will always see un usual behaviour:001_smile: