Arob

Thanks Gents, I fear this may turn out to be a red herring, thanks Scott but I don't think it Bulgaria inquinans, and no John they've not been standing in water, but thanks for the suggestion. That was the thread Monkeyd, and it's ruled that out too! I have been wondering today if it is vestiges of some kind of wound treatment.... Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes please!

Have seen a tar type exudate on the bark of ash and lime, have ruled out the possiblity of it being random tar or bitumen as it follows a callus pattern on the tree bark in a couple of different places. Am pretty sure there has been a thread about this but can't find it, can anyone advise?

Daves right, damp corrugated cardboard has an amazing ability to increase worm populations, I heard Bob Flowerdew on Gardeners Question time 3 or 4 years ago explaining that it's because of the glue that is used, the worms go crazy for it. You'll find worms crawling up and down the 'tubes', have no idea where they come from, but they multiply!

Thanks Tony... "Sorry almost forgot. Thats very bad news for your Lime Arob. Particulary intense decay on that host." ...this bit I understood! Just out of interesst what does the (Hoffm.) bit refer to?

Incredible pictures- particularly that first one!

Thanks for the info Steve, all good advice gratefully received - I'll make sure I log it twice. Any idea on the black sheet structures? I'm going to have to see if I can read up on that.

Now id'd as ustulina deusta.

Thanks deer man, afraid I'm not too familiar with my deer species so unsure what may live in that area. It's a very open rural area but these strike me as rather historic, owners keep horses but as it's fenced now they can't get near these trees - but in the past maybe? Thanks again, if I get time I might see if I can go back, they've got about 50 decent sized trees and many have similar damage, would also be interesting to see if I can spot any fungi.

Apologies for the poor pictures (camera phone, the 7 sided object is a 20p piece). Discovered these hidden at the base of a large lime today, found a cavity hidden by epicormics and area above sounded dodgy, then spotted smaller fruiting body. Investigation of the cavity (it went horizontally into tree and into ground too) then turned up another small fruiting body but also some very unusual looking black 'sheets', very angular as if a pressed man made material, one piece had some mycellium and small white mushrooms. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Hi HK I asked a similar question a couple of weeks back you can find the thread here http://www.arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3039

Thanks Dean, we suggested could have been deer, here's a link to some info on bridge grafting, appears to have been developed for use in orchards, but I wonder if it could be applied to support veteran trees. If you look at this http://www.arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1700&page=2 I presume that this occured naturally with adjacent branches self-grafting, I wonder if it could be done with a little human help, and with what success? Perhaps only one way to find out?

Is the curving down a sign of immaturity or just a standard variation?

Thanks Marc, but can't take any credit, was great to come upon grand old ladies like those.

first reaction no, then looked at http://www.aie.org.uk/fungi_base/merip/article/aie_pd_merip.html and thought could be, now unsure but curious, your pics show the fungi curving down over, MG i've seen hasn't done this and AIE pics don't have this either. I'll just wait with you Hannah for someone else to come along and ID.

I think it's the future

Laetiporus it is! (I think ) Apologies for all who I might have misled by saying a couple of months ago, pic was actually taken 7th May (busy summer!) - that might have helped you if I'd got that bit right.

windthrow in spruce plantation - any good?

Here's a couple of old girls, first 2 showing 'layering' (terminology alert!) branch touches ground, roots (speculation - didn't check it had rooted) and then grows stronger as moves away from canopy. Third one shows adaptation to rock (is it stabilising or trying to bridge obstruction, or a bit of both?)

Recently took down a large beech which had major lean, basal cavity and decay, and heavy lean over car park and towards houses, also turned out to have honey fungus. Anyway on same site there are loads of mature trees with no signs of ill-health other than serious bark damage and loss at low levels, not sure of cause, owners happy to leave as much lower risk (likely targets dry-stone walls/ fields, sheep), was recently reading about bridge grafting on fruit trees and wonder if anyone has any experience of this and knows whether it may be applied in an example such as this to rejoin cambium either side of wound? Unfortunately I haven't got great representative pics, this one is much farther gone than most... Also, are there any suggetions on possible causes - I presume mammal damage but can't do much to substantiate. Thanks.

Found these brackets on an oak (about 10ft above groud) a couple of months back can't find original photos but been back today... ,,,does anyone know what they were? (I'm just pushing the envelope, I reckon monkeyd's getting bored of id'ing I. Hisp. and I. Dry!) (Only a shame it's a crap photo)

No one else has mentioned it yet but I started to worry when I read; "The next blooper was deciding that instead of going up the conifer to sort it out..." Perhaps I have misread this, but were you thinking of climbing the conifer? Would this not have been even more dangerous? I have very little experience but from what I gather you generally don't climb either of the trees, nor try to fell the tree its hung up in or start cutting lumps out of the hung up tree. I'm sure that different situations dictate different actions, but as I understand it standard practice for a tree that size is to use a winch and pull it out butt first. (I'm happy to be corrected!) Out of interest, you say you don't know what went wrong with the fells, did you go back and look at the stumps to check the hinge and your cuts?

As you ask; 1st post; "I'm not convinced that it was ever anything other than a scare tactic to make us all accept higher prices/taxes in the name of saving the planet. The only ones still sticking to the "we're all going to burn/drown/starve" mantra are the mental wing of the environment movements!!" Both of these are fairly extreme opinions, the former that the entire premise of climate change is a 'scare tactic' is a highly cynical thing to say, to suggest that there is a core within the scientific community who have dedicated their careers to creating a political stunt? There is a failure to differentiate between the initial scientific and resulting political activity. In the second post comes the statement, "Where is the real evidence that we, as in the human race, are so destructive? Scratch at the surface of the 'evidence' and it has little substance." This is an incredible statement to make! We, as a species, have been incredibly destructive, civilizations have collapsed as a result of destroying their environments (read A Forest Journey by John Perlin). Across the world we have de-stabilised ecosystems, depleted the soils on which we depend, over-fished and polluted massive expanses of water, produced and released chemicals which accumulate in the food chain. The rate of species extinction which we are currently witnessing is far, far greater than anything seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs (read E.O. Wilson). Our agicultural practices such as battery farming are held to be the cause of highly virulent strains of bird 'flu Our recent love affair with plastics has seen widespread pollution of the oceans, killing a wide range of birds, fish and animals as it gradually breaks down into small particulates which may well be bio-accumulative. I do know what kind of evidence is being requested here - it seems that there is "a landslide of evidence to disprove and discredit that very argument." In the following post "Put your faith in the scientific record" Yet the following post is entirely polarised and propagandist and therefore isn't worthy of serious refutation. Science must be impartial and open in order to be effective; begin with a hypothesis and test it in a repeatable manner, the aim being to generate evidence to either support or discredit the hypothesis. The article posted does not contain these qualities, it is rhetorical and not seeking to prove or disprove but ram through "to beat themselves and anyone else with" a particular agenda. The next post may have some scientific validity but if it is (and it is) taken out of context then this validity is completely lost. Everything in life has positives and negatives, the fact that windpower is not consistent is pretty obvious, the challenge is to design a supportive system which is practical and cost-effective. If we blithely criticise anything that has a drawback then what can we ever acheive? Again the nature of this posting is pejorative. This is followed up by a couple of lengthy posts, the first on p5, is interesting but the information about the specific studies requires further validation. It may well be the case that in the course of publicising a book on the subject an author has made exaggerations but this does not detract from the underlying scientific fact. I should also like to counterpoint the satements made about polar ice caps by reminding Dagmar that many tropical islands are becoming uninhabitable as a result of rising sea levels, such facts must be considered in connection to each other if we are taking a summary view of the argument. If we take one piece of information in isolation then it will be subjective. I'd say fair comment to the following post, a statement backed up with current research. I would say that the points raised in the post at the top of p9 are very important and valid comments; carbon sequestration depends upon this carbon being locked away, something which perhaps escapes most people who are looking for a quick fix, and the point of maintenance always seems to crop up, funding is made for a ''sexy' project but few like the 'dirty work' of keeping it going. As far as carbon sequestration is concerned I wonder whether the best option is not to improve our soils by adding composted plant materials, that way we might gradually be able to increase overall biotic life - a slow process no doubt but are there any other options? The following attack on Gore seems a little too cynical, "There is so much evidence that we, as humans, have no real influence on the climate system that it is a wonder that anyone bothers to watch this drivel , let alone think that it could be true." This again fails to respect the work of the majority of climatologists across the world who consider that man does have a very real influence. I would not want to deny Dagmar her right to hold this opinion but it is an opinion, to be taken more seriously it needs to be substantiated from first principles. Dagmar's following post clearly displays the kind of 'pot and kettle' attitude which I draw attention to; "Why would a warmer climate be a bad thing? Global warming lengthens growing seasons. Carbon dioxide, the cause of (part of the) warming (dormant for 11 years now) clearly improves crop yields in a world where stupid global warming policies (like burning our food supply in cars) are increasing food scarcity." This simplicity of argument betrays a lack of research and contains statements which she has already opposed "Carbon dioxide, the cause of (part of the) warming" To suggest, as this statement does, that a warmer climate would only bring benefits, ignores the spread of insects and diseases, the problems presented to indigenous wildlife - we can plant olive trees in southern UK but can nature move so dratically without a short term break down which would be hugely damaging to our species? To confuse increased crop yields with reduced food scaricity is deeply naive, we are not in an egalitarian society, there are haves and have nots, it has nothing to do with 'more', I am not saying that it's either right or wrong - it is fact. Our food staples are increasing in price in part because people who have previously been denied them are now able to afford them as their countries industrialise and they gain economic power. The most recent posting on p10, a list of 20 statements is entirely propagandist, to suggest that all of the scientists who support the prevailing climate change theory are corrupt, that there is a conspiritorial 'hoax' at work, that there is 'biofuel hysteria', and 'Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder'; how can you expect to be taken seriously spreading nonsense like that? Criticism of Gore's methods of politicising a complex scientific issue is one thing, to suggest scientific pre-eminence and then post base rubbish such as the above, is quite another. Dagmar has posted a lot on this topic, others have commented on the fact that it is not easily digestable and copied in large part, the tone of a number of the articles is overpowering and not without strong bias. The overall argument which she [presents is very patchy, scientifically highly dubious and unsubstantiated. The scientific arguments presented, like most climatological science is unbelievably complicated, and incredibly difficult to substantiate, if you listen to the majority of scientists, not extreme and polarised people, you will hear them couch their views in terms such as 'the prevailing data suggests' or suchlike, you won't hear absolutist statements as there is so much uncertainty - and rightly so. But vitally important is to disentangle the science from the political shennanigins, there are vested interests on both sides of this argument, reasoned argument is lost when one allies oneself to the conclusions of convenience, I am pointing out that this is what Dagmar has done, her argument is as discredited as the argument she seeks to discredit.

Quote from Dagmar on p4 of thread "By mental I mean anyone who holds onto an unprovable and witless argument then uses it to beat themselves and anyone else with it, this in spite a landslide of evidence to disprove and discredit that very argument." Pot and kettle?

A link to sing-a-long-a Jack Johnson [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLZDbaoqC4[/ame]