Tony Croft aka hamadryad

Only because its fun, not because of any other reason old bean,

Is the leafy brain a first david?

I reckon one could argue the case for pollarding on a cultural basis too. It is a traditional method that we should not allow to fall by the wayside.

I let Our young gun Tom do a fairly substantial walnut today, just to see what the lad can do when allowed to get on with it. I was expecting this to be a little slower, and maybe a little sparse, I would now feel happy putting tom up just about anything reduction wise. Tom, you can be proud of yourself mate, I know guys twice your age and experience level that could not have done as good a job, and would take longer about it too! fair play mate, as far as im concerned your arb enough for me, 10 out of 10:thumbup1:

yep, im always game, be good to catch up too.

Sooty bark is a lethal disease of Acer pseudoplatanus. It is characterized by wilt, die-back, bark shedding and by the production of a thick layer of brownish black, dry phialospores in the bark by a fungus invading the cambium and phloem of affected trees. It has spread continuously in and around Wanstead Park, Essex, since 1945. The fungus has been identified as the North American species Coniosporium corticale Ell. & Ev., which is now made the type of a new genus Cryptostroma, because of characters of the stroma, conidiophores and conidia. Conclusive evidence of pathogenicity is lacking, but there is strong circumstantial evidence that the fungus is an aggressive parasite. Preliminary inoculation experiments suggest that the fungus is normally spread by air-borne spores entering through wounds and broken ends of branches. The fungus appears to be a new introduction into England. Copyright © 1951 British Mycological Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

I guess I walked into that sarcasm!

and what is it about the weather jammy, noticed this in whip yesterday, all lower canopy, looked bad

I doubt that I will be missed, and I cant get to al the shws and events, done so many this year and overstretched meself by a very long margin!

The only history interest is that there is a converted windmill within a stones throw, very very cool house. There are many trees of this size in the area, all scattered about, Im going to tape her over the weekend and do her an ATF record, she definatley deserves to be on the database:thumbup1: Dont worry about the slice, I cant make it to jonsies

This oak must be over 400 years, thats two trees this week with a combined age of 700! beech 300+ and this Oak 400+ have advised halo, but not in budget, but open to maybe doing so next year. Obviously L. sulphureus and G. applanatum in attendance

ha ha ha ha ha ha, your a right foony C:lol:

Thats a tubby stiped little fella, wasnt getting colybia from the first image at all, though you was cheating not showing the basal region. good game, nice one graham, But my rep is still far from in tatters I believe!

Might want to rephrase that a little, I shall dig out a reference later. it is X. polymorpha though:thumbup1:

not the native ones but the bigger forign jobs these ones

Harmless and a good bug leave them alone.

I would think this case is hard to elaborate on given the very limited images, theres no canopy/crown shots for a start. But mellea is a problem for ash in the long term. Loose bark plates are to be expected as the mellea attacks the sugar rich cambium and causes loosening of bark plates from underneath, which are often re sealed over if the tree is coping with the colonisation. however the deadwood between the butress regions indicates a potential thinning of the wall also. (trunk becoming tubular) Really cant say more than this based on these images, I wouldnt be panicking just yet though.

Yep, that be Honey, more specifically that be armillaria mellea. Looks like its been avin a go on the ash for a lot of years.

In a forest scenario Oaks will often die in competition with Armillaria being the primary weakness parasite of oaks in such a scenario, hence the tar spots often attributed to what is collectivley known as AOD. Oaks dont like competition, thinning them out is a good move, nature will do it anyway.

yes it is, I would not be too concerned about trying to keep up with them not for arb purposes, psuedoinonotus has been used for a long time anyway in some references. The names will all go back once this clan of splitters lose place and the others get their foot in the door again! And they wonder why Mycology is a dying game with no-one wanting to join the ranks! the polotics and name games are worse than in arboriculture!

I would have to get my books out to work out what it is from the photo and doubt even then I could have a decent guess. but im lazy

The tree really dictates the shape that it wants to be, its normal for some trees to seem broader when done than when started out. The trick is to go light in the tp and hard on the sides, you get a better result from this usualy and also is in keeping with structural modifications as the lower limbs tend to be the ones under high mechanical loading. It took three peels, top down to do that beech, three anchor points. I could get away with an awful lot on this beech because retrenchment had already begun, it was already shooting from the inside of the crown and was prone to secondary growth. That always makes things easier because you can rely on the tree to make growth points where there was little at the time you reduced the limb. The age of the tree is a factor too, as an old over mature tree is often prepairing for a new life of less stature and crown dieback, so there is usualy a second inner crown forming to work with.

this is going to be a slow one but good in a way, forcing everyone to hone in on the details, I just noticed the gills are unattached too

being a lime its no issue really, but yes and no, the roots and leaves are intertwined, one feeds the other and vice versa, one will struggle without the other. foliage last MUCH longer than roots without the other, cut the cambium and the phloem loss is slow to reveal itself as the zylem still functions as normal.

Let me give you a little tip, Sloth is being a bit clever, because he is giving you an as yet unspoken of feature of fungi from an identification perspective, the INSIDE of the stipe and flesh. Think, fleshy or wooly hollow or fibrous etc etc