the body language of Decay, The Delights of D

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Very interesting thread... wish I could contribute something to it but alot of it goes over my head....

 

I have been reading 'The body language of trees' by Mattheck, so how do we distinguish 'normal body language' and 'the body language of decay'.

 

For example I found an oak with a slight lean the other day, bark clearly 'stretched' on the tension side and 'buckled' (if thats the right term) on the compression side. Is this a possible sign of decay or something you would expect to see on any leaning tree? A picture speaks a thousand words so i'll try and get photos for you....

Charlie.

 

Practice!

 

delamination of bark is a normal symptom of stress (tension)

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

This image shows a common language, that of the fagus and two fungi, Meripilus and Ganoderma pfiefferi, and image youll get used to seeing in these pages. The regular discovery of this combination will soon convince eb=ven the most hardened knee jerker that colonisation via principal decay fungi is not always or near fatal.

 

 

This oak shows multiple buckle failures ( compression failures) the number of buckles and thier form tells us this is more than just a structural symptm, a symptom of internal decay, and in oaks this may be brown or white rot, as brown rot can and frequently does result in buckles due to a type of structural fault known as shell buckling.

 

 

And here we see a hornbeam with a very impresive Phelinus igniarius bracket. The tree is cleary vital and although the trunk is becoming discontinuos this merely displays to us that the fungi is being held at bay within the old dysfunctional core.

 

[sean freeman]

Great pics, great thread...greater message,

[sloth]

Sorry I don't have pics, but I often see 'buckling' similar to the oak above on London plane with apparently no rot at all. Is this just a feature of them, or body language caused by external factors? Just a thought

[RopeKnight]

the best thread in the history of threads.

my heart is racing at times, it is truly a spiritual moment to enter the thought process of genius. words that birth meaning!

 

thank you

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

the best thread in the history of threads.

my heart is racing at times, it is truly a spiritual moment to enter the thought process of genius. words that birth meaning!

 

thank you

 

No, thank you, all of u.

Ive no pc at the moment, maybe next week some time, when im running again i will try to put some more insights together for u. There are many exciting things to come of this discussion, it is clear that the time has come for a new approach to decay.

[David Humphries]

Good to see your still in the land of the living Mr Dryad.

 

your camera must of sealed itself shut by now

 

 

 

 

Need to defo get over to the Beeches together in the near future.

 

Mr Harding had a great wonder around the shouting beeches the other day.

 

 

 

 

.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Good to see your still in the land of the living Mr Dryad.

 

your camera must of sealed itself shut by now

 

 

 

 

Need to defo get over to the Beeches together in the near future.

 

Mr Harding had a great wonder around the shouting beeches the other day.

 

 

 

 

.

 

Hello david, be a spring flush starting soon, reckon on an early spring this year whenever ur free mate, love them burnham trees.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

The more I study fungi the more I realise that it takes so many experiences to really get your head round these things, the Phelinus igniarius is one fungi I've taken my time to understand. This is simply more due to availability of examples in my neck of the woods so to speak, but thanks to Sean over at Richmond, a few trees at Knole house and this sample from today and also one at Windsor. One of the things that made this lesson so hard to take was those classic examples one sees in the txts on the subject. The P. igniarius can and more often than not present itself as a spit for a ganoderma Sp. At times this ones thrown me for a G. pfiefferi, or a possible G. australe at other times, later I will illustrate some key features that I have now limited solely to this Phelinus sp and this should help you all be a bit more tuned in to this slippery imitator, and in much less time than it took me to master!

 

This Oak has a corking example of bottle butt, complete with fibre buckling, and clearly displaying the original shear crack that instigated the colonisation. The tree is clearly still viable and vital, maybe the igniarius is not as aggressive a parasite as we currently assume?

 

 

 

[sean]

hey tony......good to have you back.....yes richmond......."its pheifferi.....no its phellinus.......well if this one is phellinus......then that one has to be phellinus.....which means that one is pheifferi.

 

Have your disc here.....got to pop in the post.