Desiccated fruitbodies

[coleman]

Thanks, Mr Arnold, that is what I thought it was. I will get myself back there next year and confirm for sure. They say it's tasty too so I might try a wee bit.

 

My friend ate a load and it gave him the s**ts.

[daltontrees]

On second thoughts, then, maybe I will just pop down to Tescos instead and buy some mushrooms.

 

There was I heard a case in the States where a family had eaten lots and died, the Laetiporous had been growing on trees planted on a contaminated site the trees had absorbed the contamination (which they were there to do) and the fungus had absorbed it and intensified the concentration of contamination.

[treeseer]

On second thoughts, then, maybe I will just pop down to Tescos instead and buy some mushrooms.

 

There was I heard a case in the States where a family had eaten lots and died, the Laetiporous had been growing on trees planted on a contaminated site the trees had absorbed the contamination (which they were there to do) and the fungus had absorbed it and intensified the concentration of contamination.

 

Plausible but i'm in the states and had not heard the news...rural legend?

[sloth]

Could have been, laeti growing on Taxus is known to absorb toxins, although In what quantities I don't know. Also some ground dwelling shrooms, puffball and others can collect and concenrate heavy metals; so they shouldn't be eaten from roadside pickings.

I have been wary of eating laeti from roadside oaks for that reason, but wondered if it may be ok. Thoughts being the laeti is decaying heartwood (lets just say formed by the tree before said road existed) so may not come into contact with pollutants from a road. I don't suppose anyone knows for certain, but trees used to absorb toxins/contaminants from polluted sites may well pass them on to their fungal friends...

[daltontrees]

Heartwood is old wood infused by the tree with dense complex compounds, exactly where you would expect heavy metals and other contaminants to be concentrated.

[sloth]

Agreed, however 'normal' amounts aren't a concern. So if there wasn't a high concentration in the soil at the time of heartwood formation, it wouldn't then accumulate years later, would it?

[daltontrees]

The way I have always thought of it (and please please if anyone knows different let me know) is that when a tree gets to the age when it can produce heartwood, every year thereafter when it puts on a new ring it consigns an old ring to heartwood. So if that is so evey year a ring of wood is converted from sapwood to heartwood. I have another unproven assumption that heartwood is produced from sapwood by the importation of substances from vigorous new wood along medullary rays and more generally by patrenchymal cells towards the older heart of the tree. Adding assumptions to guresses to hypotheses that would mean that fungi absorbing compounds from relatively old wood would have access to current contamination in the soil. Please feel free to strafe my speculation as ruthlessly as its unscientific origin deserves.

[Gary Prentice]

I thought this was auricularia on dead oak, but I don't think I've seen it this black.

[Gary Prentice]

The upper side

[David Humphries]

Can't really tell from that image.

 

Now that the second image is up, I would think Exidia glandulosa - witches butter

 

 

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