sean freeman

What a lovely furry fella..well done Tony, can't help but wonder about how many spores just get caught up in the fruiting bodies directly below.

Ok I do have some of my own (ie pics I have taken)...however none come close to this.. Scariest tree in the world: Suffolk 70ft beech with wonky eyes | Mail Online

Truely horrible for anyone with a family there....worst 90 mins of my life thus far earlier this year, sometimes taking a sickie can be a really good thing:sneaky2:...my eldest was living and working in down town C'church...his place of work...flattened. He and his girlfriend now in Wanaka where they felt the latest shake down. My thoughts are with all those who are still trying to make a go of living there, last night would have been really hard with no power.

Brilliant work [as ususal ] on the heath, if we had the money we would fly you over here to give workshops on this type of management...honestly! I'll be borrowing some pics [properly attributed of course] of this for future talks

Very well put :thumbup1:and [iMO] an essential clarification to those of us that would be mentally lazy...yes I have been one, and still catch myself being so every now and again:blushing:

Yes I am aware of those species Gerrit, it seems likely to me, that the taxonomists would be aware of them too...it was not possible to during the workshop to take up too much time focussed on this one issue since there were a few very interested attendees with different questions for the mycologist...but for me it is troubling. We have people working as Arborists who are providing advice about the predictive outcomes of a relationship between wood decay fungi and host that is based in the case of G. lucidum and G. applanatum a mistaken ID....now this certainly should not matter most of the time except that as is the case elsewhere we also have here many instances where valuable habitat trees are removed 'cause they have fungus'...or because the fungi is mis-identified and/or wood decay characteristics are attributed to that fungi on that tree species based on ????? I absolutely love the level of specific detail you are able to call on Gerrit and have little doubt you base it on years of observation backed up by microscopic analysis and plant pathology...but I am massively envious...we do not have anywhere near that level of knowledge on which to base our diagnosis here. This fact does not prevent some from pontificating on the topic as if we did BTW.

Well its been almost a week since I attended a worshop in teh subtropical rainforests just north of Brisbane [edge of the Glasshouse mountains] and I am still struggling to process all the thoughts which were stimulated by the talks and the walks. The reason for posting is really to fess up to being informed that a group of fungi that I have been very comfortable in identifying can no longer be called what they were being called. Now I know Gerrit has touched on this in another thread re Ganoderma applanatum, and I am happy to recognise where my level of understanding ends...BUT it now appears to be the case that not only do we not have any G. applanatum in Oz [something I have nown for a while since I.Hood states it clearly in his text] but DNA analysis has noe shown that we have no G. lucidum here either.... I have no clue what these shiny lacquered f/b's are going to be called but at this stage it seems G. lucidum ain't one of the options....as Hama wrote in an earlier thread I am going back to the drawing board, and confirming my reluctance to be more specific than identifying fungi to genus. I guess I'll go through and edit some posts in this thread to at least avoid making blatant errors

What a giant, great picture:thumbup1:...was going to write something lame lie tree-mendous but you are above all such innane frivolity:001_tt2:

I took vey few if any pics back then (I was much too serious a student to be doing such things ;>P ) but I frequented Russell Square (along with manyother little pocket parks) as a place to gather thoughts and just unwind. Thanks for the galllery link, its weird how photos from the 1980's have a certain 'quality' to them...you just know they are from that era even without the human fashion hints.

Lovely pics of a lovely looking tree Its doing pretty well considering all the hugging it must have had over the years

Sorry to say that if the gum is a Eucalyptus (IME) it is not going to respond the way (I suspect) you and the tree owner planned.

You are an inspiration Mr Humphries, thankyou for commiting so much time and effort and to Steve for helping make this resource available to all and sundry...even the unwashed from upside down land!

Thankyou Gerrit (don't worry Dutch is ok). Totally agree:thumbup1:...I don't have a neat signature that encompasses who I am and my perspective. but if you care to tap the link below you'll certainly get a feel for who I try to be. The quote from you sounds uncomfortably like the concluding statements from one of my own presentations...hmmm perhaps I will have to include you in my acknowledgements now:biggrin:

Gerrit, would it be possible to have the reference for the articles which contained the conclusions you and your colleague drew on 'off the shelf mycorrhizal inocculants'. Also as a slightly related follow up presumably you would not percieve similar reservations about the in vitro multiplication of specific native locally occuring (to the trees being treated)mycorrhizae to be reintroduced to the soil profile? (I am specifically thinking about the published work done by Francesco Ferrini et al.)

Taupotreeman if you are at all interested in NZ fungi get yourself this one Forest Fungi of New Zealand

You can remove a large portion of the conjecture here by examining the buttress roots and root crown....slow or fast the decay Ganoderma. sp produce is not all that hard to locate and evaluate once you do a little digging.

Beautiful pictures Gerrit.

Very high quality time lapse photography revealing the beauty and "shock and awe" of the streams of the multinucleate mass of cytoplasm. I guess it is easier for some of us (myself included) to accept that we are certainly not at the top of any pyramid when it comes to certain perspectives of 'intelligence'.

I absolutely agree with this description of what is shown in the pics provided. All I would add from the other side of the world is that I think you should consider having a close look at the root buttresses with a careful root crown excavation...the aim being to try to assess to what extent the root crown has been compromised by the decay. If you have an air-knife then this is ideal, but you can get a look at the rot crown using old fashoined sweat and tears with small tools and a cautious approach avoiding causing physical damage to roots at the base of the stem.

First of all lets be clear I only have the pics to go on...I do not know what the tree owner/custodian wanted from the work that was done...I don't know what the objectives were, nor what (if any were carried out) the outcome of a pre-works assessment might have been. If we are talking in the hypothetical then I can think of a myriad of options...none of which BTW I would think appropriate to call pollarding. In the specifics (at least as far as can be gleaned from the pics) of this tree if the intention was to retain the tree for habitat then I am unsure what organism is being considered....the biggest beneficary being the Ganoderma Of course there are many insects and other fungi that would be calling this tree home, they matter but I do not accept that this hat racking is either the only or the best means to retain such standing habitat. That kind of severity of cutting IMO is merely going to accelerate the decline in the tree, massively increase dysfunctional tissue, rob the tree of all of its photosynthetic capacity condemning it to sacrificing what stored carbohydrates it can access to drive the flush of new growth. I do not see this as 'maintaining' a veteran tree...but I do acknowledge that it is just possible that is what the intention might have been.

Yes I understand the arguement it is just that it seems to me most improbable that a 'pollard head' will be formed before the injury site becomes an occupied infection court. I don't think you or anyone else here is arguing that this was an attempted pollard but I have come across such claims when cuttinglike this is questioned, I am not climbing on some high horse (at least I don't think I am) it is just that I am unimpressed by the weakness of such claims of deliberate pollard formation via lopping and topping.

I don't think I would describe what was done as pollarding. No question there should be substantial carbohydrate reserves to fuel the reshooting, would suspect it is a little early to determine what the next 10-30yrs might bring. Resource allocation has been dramatically restructured along with the branch architecture!

Hello Gerrit from here in Australia, I would alos like to thank you for giing of your time to discuss matters mycological with Arbophiles from all parts.... I have a question relating to some anecdotal observations (by others) regarding Meripilus giganteus. It has been posited that there might be two (or more) forms, which have different impacts on the host tree. Now I am NOT trying to pour cold water on these thoughts merely to ask what your view is. I asked the same of Francis Schwarze two months ago whilst he was delivering a workshop on Phellinus noxious, Francis had not heard this idea (of the different forms) before and felt he had seen no evidence himself to suggest it might be the case. My own thoughts are like some of the Phellinus sp I see here in Oz, that Meripilus giganteus is responding to the range of conditions present in the host tree..which may well be (often is!) imperceptable to the unaided eye (without microscope).

David as I know you are aware, myco conservation does have a very strong UK voice... A babe is born! International Society of Fungal Conservation - Scottish Fungi http://www.imafungus.org/Issue/2/09.pdf