Any idea what happened here?

[Stefan Palokangas]

Lightning strikes from ground and up. Or most of them do

 

 

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[Island Lescure]

Prod and hammer? Cleaning comes first, then trimming dead bark.

 

Don't know why but my other post reply is gone. I must not have clicked submit...

 

Anyway, Cheers.

 

If you look on the two bottom pics, you can just about see where I have prised off some bark to see if it is healthy. It is, but I will bring a sponge and some water to clean out the fissure to check it out. It is a birch amongst many so can't spend too much time on it, but it will be interesting to see nonetheless.

[Island Lescure]

Well sponge was of no use, next time I will try with a plastic brush. Anyway, whilst inspecting further I eventually found some tiny bits of Kretzchmaria at the base mixed in with moss. So basically, my conclusion of this is that a crack appeared from high winds, Kretzch set in, another crack from weakened stem and wind and now the tree is dangerous. So it goes.

[Kveldssanger]

Sure it was Kretz on this birch and not a species of Hypoxylon (particularly H. multiforme)? I ask as Kretz on birch is not - to my understanding - that common.

[tree-fancier123]

interesting those species both look like black blobs on the tree

one for the field mycologist

just noticed this after a quick trawl - has a key for discriminating between species

http://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/files/5612/8294/9082/Hypoxylon_part_3.pdf

[Island Lescure]

Not entirely sure now. It was very irregular, somewhat akin to figures 6 or 7 from the link just provided above. I was surprised that there was no fresh growth (white and grey from Kretzsch) so it is very possible that it was that. Never came accross it before. The cross section of kretzsch from this link does not fit with what I found so it must be Hypoxylon. Not going back to site and have no pics so cannot ascertain which one though.