Oaks of Stour Meadows

[Matthew Arnold]

Whilst on my day off (odd to have a day off on a tuesday i know) i decided to take some pictures of the big Oaks on one of my sites known as Stour Meadows. It is a floodplain with a big attenuation lake (flood alleviation pond). It has some history about it, as the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway line ran through there. We have a 60+ year old hedgerow, although the trees in the hedgerow arent 60+ years old it is still well established. Most of the Oaks are English/Common (Quercus robur) but we also have a pair of Turkey Oaks (Quercus cerris) and a small group of Holm Oaks (Quercus ilex). Here are the order of the pics:

 

Pics 1,2,3 and 4 - Common Oak with butress root flares. No sign of fruiting bodies but base has been dug out by bunnies. Going to have "sunseeker" limb removed to attempt to re-balance.

Pics 5,6 and 7 - Common Oak with small cavity and root flairing at base. Leaves are small in the summer and is deadwooded each year. When it dies it shall become a deadwood monolith.

Pic 8 - Large Turkey Oaks. Both very healthy. Crown cleaned a few months back to remove rubbing branches.

Pics 9, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16, 17 and 18 - Common Oak with fruiting bodies in between butress roots. Very obvious butress flares but otherwise healthy. ( Any ID on the fruiting bodies would be helpful)

Pics 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 - Pair of Common Oaks. No fruiting bodies. Very Health. One tree lost several limbs in 1980s storm when neighbouring Oak slid down the side. Bat roost used by Pipistrelle and occasionally Noctule Bat

 

P.S. Soz for huge amount of images to sort thru.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

The fruit bodies would need proper identification via spores, to me they look like pfiefferi despite knowing it is rare on oaks, a tree i would not be worried about it colonising as it would have very weak capacity and is probably just consuming the heartwood made dysfunctional (aerated) by the lightning strike. Even australe can have a hard time killing a healthy robur but on cerris and others i would be getting more involved, G resinaceum is one to fear on Q robur

 

first one looks like classic I. dryadeus.

[Matthew Arnold]

The fruit bodies would need proper identification via spores, to me they look like pfiefferi despite knowing it is rare on oaks, a tree i would not be worried about it colonising as it would have very weak capacity and is probably just consuming the heartwood made dysfunctional (aerated) by the lightning strike. Even australe can have a hard time killing a healthy robur but on cerris and others i would be getting more involved, G resinaceum is one to fear on Q robur

 

first one looks like classic I. dryadeus.

 

Here is a few pictures of the first tree with I. dryadeus nestled in the butresses and a couple of pictures of the cavity showing a large number of Ganoderma brackets all with fresh spore layers.