daltontrees

I have the very thing here. I can't remember what it is, a thin section of a cross section of a broadleaf tree. Individual cells can clearly be seen. The magnification is 600x, so much so that even though the thin section is only about 1/200th of a millimetre I was unable to focus on the front and the back of the thin section at the same time. It looks blurry because you are seeing one side of the slide out of focus and the other in focus. The first picture is in Plane Polarised Light. The S1, S2 and S3 layers of the cell walls are visible. The second slide shows it in Cross Polarised Light. Sure enough, where there is nothing to rotate the light it looks black. But the cellulose in the cell walls, especially the shallow angled cellulose in S2, is diffracting the light so that it is getting through the second polariser. And if it had been infected with say K. deusta in soft rot mode, you would have been able to see a reduction in cellulose. Which is what I am trying to put across as the great benefits of microscopy with the advantage of Cross Polarised Light and a rotating stage. To be honest I don't see how anyone could get by without one!

OK I have found something suitable. A thin section of a piece of mica-rich granite, I think. In the middle is a crystal of Biotite, a mica. In a rock this looks jet black in reflected light. In thin section it is transparent and slightly yellow/green/brown. The picture is in Plane Polarised Light. The second picture is in Cross Polarised Light. No light should be getting through, but it is because every crystal is rotating the light. The biotite is no brightly coloured. The textureless grey stuff is quartz, all shades of grey depending on optic axis (never mind that bit). OK now I need to find pics of a tree section in Cross Polarised Light.

Another quick tutorial for anyone that's interested. This is a bit hardcore but is useful foundation understanding for anyone that wants to get into microscopy. So far I have referred to the two types of microscope being reflected and transmitted light. I am going to concentrate on transmitted light for now. That's basically looking at light passing through thin sections. But whadya know there is more than one kind of light. Every bit of light we receive is made up of zillions of photons, little bundles of light energy. Each one has a random orientation or plane. So say you were looking at a conventional wrist watch. One photon could be arriving in your eye in the 12 o'clock 6 o'clock plane. Another in the 2 o'clock 8 o'clock plane. Yet another in the 11.30 5.30 plane etc etc a million times over in absolutely every possible plane. The eye can't tell which plane each photon is in, it doesn't matter, it's all just light. But white light is made up of all the colours at once. Proof of this is that it can be split by a prism. Dig out a copy of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, that's what's on the cover. When you look at white light through a microscope this is what you get. All colours and all orientations. This is called 'Bright Field'. There are times, though, when you might only want to get one colour of light. For this, microscopes can be fitted with colour filters. Easy. The next bit is a bit more complicated. Sometimes you only want light in one plane of orientation. I will explain why in a minute. Say you only want light in the 12 - 6 plane. This is what polarising filters do. They have a very very fine set of lines on them that only lets those photons through that are in the right plane of orientation. Like say if you stood over a road drain with slats on it and dropped a packet of uncooked spaghetti onto it in random orientations. Only the spaghetti that was in the same orientation as the grating would get through. The rest would bounce off. This is what a polarising filter is doing, only the photons in one plane are getting through. Looking at a slide in this light is called 'Plane Polarised'. With me so far? The polarising filter goes between the lamp and the slide so the slide is only getting polarised light through it. What would happen if you put another polarising filter over the slide at right angles to the first one. That's right, no light can get through. Like 2 drain covers. What one lets through the other catches. But that's not strictly true. Whatever is between them could be acting like a mini prism, in effect rotating the photons slightly. Thus a few make it through the second polariser because their plane of orientation is no longer at right angles to the second polariser. Doing this is called looking in 'Cross Polarised Light'. OK I am going to find a picture of a rock thin section to illustrate why this is useful.

This bit from my website might help you verify whether I have got it right and might help you remember it too. Home - Dalton Tree Solutions

Or morality with compulsion.

My, you're careful! That's an entirely appropriate caveat.

Based on height and tree species and what I can see from the photos, I'd guess at Daedalopsis confragrosa.

What I took from Wagon Mound 2 was that the fire on the harbour was a foreseeable consequence of causing the oil slick, and the engineer was to blame for the damage caused by the fire. But what I really meant by citing it is that the court said that all the engineer had to do to prevent the hazard was to close a valve. Therefore although it was a freakish accident that caused the damage it could have been very easily avoided at nil cost. If regular chimney sweeping could have prevented a chimney fire and if an obvious and entirely foreseeable consequence of a chimney fire was torching the neighbour's thatched roof, Wagon Mound 2 would have been on the side of the old lady.

That's 2!

It might be stretching a point to say that heartwood is even functional in the first place. Shigo's static apoplast and all that? PS I noted somewhere this morning that Shigo defines Decay in CODIT as the process of decay, not the substance. I am even more convinced that Dysfunction is not a better term. Sorry to disagree. But it's just semantics anyway.

Happy to help, PM me when you have lined up a victim. Stereo aint quite the right word, it suggests that you will be able to discern depth in the subject such that it looks three dimensional. The right word is probably binocular. Two identical eyepieces having the same view. Some find it easier on the eyes because you don't have to close one eye. There is also the option of a trinocular. These aren't cheap though. I'm not suggesting anyone has three eyes, what they are good for is keeping a camera or computer connection attached to one of them semi-permanently so that when you see something interesting you can instantly take a picture of it. I was going to get on to the subject of photographing through the microscope shortly. But basically if you have any microscope that has a 23mm or 30mm sleeve for the eyepiece, you have lots of options. Therefore don't get any instrument that doesn't have a slide-out detachable eyepiece. And if you get a microscope, I will give you a couple of tree slides that I have duplicates of. By then I should have posted how to make your own microtome and then your own slides. Then you can dissect some branch unions and make slides and solve the riddle once and for all. Should have it wrapped up by Easter. You weren't doing anything else, were you?

Sorry, here's the attachment. KTSmithletter7Feb11.pdf

Sorry, I can't help you. Attached is aletter you might already have seen defending Shigo's principles and I think identifying some of the origins of conflict between Shigo's and Slater's approaches. I have no problem with people knocking Shigo's work but it's a pity the detractors can't come up with a better explanation. It could scarcely be clearer to anyone that has had a branch snap underfoot up a tree that the connection on top of the branch to the stem is purely mechanical, with minimal if any vascular connection.

That is so unfair. And if you are familiar with the Wagon Mound case it also seems wrong.

The more I think about this the unclearer it gets. On the one hand you cold see the sloping tree as an encroachment into air space just like any overhanging branches. The position on that is clear, the overhung person can remove, subject only to offering the arisings back to the tree owner. The generality of that is sound enough, it is a sensible position that has been in common law for at least 2 millenia. Trees are natural living things that don't know of petty arbitrary human things like ownership boundaries. It is not illegal to let a tree grow into someone's airspace. But that isn't the situation here. The tree has been thrust into someone's airspace. Forget what the insurers say, insurers have a duty to themselves and their shareholders not to spend money if they don't have to. They have a contract (the insurance policy) with the insured which says when they pay out and when they don't. If they won't pay to finish the job off it doesn't necessarily follow that the tree owner shouldn't. This is not a normal tree encroachment. It seems to me to be a sudden encroachment like any other, like if someone parked a car on your land. It may be an act of god, it may not have been foreseeable, but why should the encroached have to suffer this unauthorised intrusion into his airspace? On that basis, get the tree owner to move it. I am pretty sure legal action would back this up and would award costs against the tree owner.

That's a very good summary of the issues. But I suppose what I was getting at is that if you disregard whether worth or value is an appropriate term, is it even possible to put a figure on amenity? As long as there is no way of relating that figure back to some market test then I don't think that it is UNLESS the figure quoted is stated as being an artificial and purely relative one.

|I would be kidding myself on if I said I had a complete answer to this. Hence my post a few minutes ago. In the left corner is the Act that gives the Council TPO powers in the interests of the amenity of the area. In the right corner is the Council trying to out a 'break it and you pay for it' label on its trees. Equating words with numbers has never been easy, and never will be.

Here's a general question for anyone that's interested. For once isn't any sort of loaded or rhetorical question. Can amenity be quantified in ££s?

Sorry, I have been preoccupied with ALL sorts of other stuff, will definitely get round to this.

Nor would I! Do what any reasonable person would do in the circumstances and you need fear no repercussions.

Ford Transit Smiley tipper 190 is on 150k miles. Aint gonna win any sprints but she plods on.

Good to hear it's working better. But if you want to see cells you will almost certainly not do this with a reflected light microscope and you may have to take the leap to transmitted light microscopy (see my earlier posts) Microtomes are simple in principle. They hold samples firmly while very very thin slices are taken of them. Bear with me and I will post a few pictures. You should be able to improvise a microtome with a bolt, two nuts, a razor blade and a candle.

Good point, but decay IS always damage. Conversely damage is not always decay. Decay can arise from OR cause dysfunction. Dysfunction is a process, not a thing, and I don't see how a consequence of damage or decay can be described as compartmentalised ???

I'd go with Pleurotus sp. too.

There seem to be a few loose ends in this thread. In the interest of leaving the thread a bit tidier as a reference resource, I am going to have a shot at summarising. I suspect I will regret it. There are three parties as I see it. The tree owner, the development site owner (whether he is the developer or the person selling the land) and the public sector (generally the Council). Firstly for trees that are not protected by TPOs or CA status at the time development is proposed. The tree owner has to tolerate the removal of roots in the site and overhanging branches, as long as this is not done mischeviously. He could ask the Council to intervene and TO the tree. The site owner can remove roots in the site, just as he can overhanging branches. This can be done with or without development proposals. The Council can make a TPO to prevent unconsented work to the tree, if it considers it expedient to do so for the amenity of the area. They can alternatively or additionally put forward conditions in a planning consent that protect part of the tree and its roots that are on the site, even if the stem of the tree is on other land. Secondly for trees that are TPO'd already. The tree owner cannot do anything to the tree or its roots without TPO consent, unless the planning consent for the site allows such work. The developer cannot do anything to the tree or its roots or branches, even the parts in or over the site, without TPO consent. The exception is that if the planning permission explicitly or implicitly recognises that the tree works are needed to implement the consent. In that case a separate TPO consent is not needed. Any work beyond that which is necessary to implement the consent is unlawful. If the site owner does not have the tree owner's permission to do work to the tree he can only do what he could do at common law (see first scenario). The Council can make a TPO when it learns of the development proposals if it has reason to believe that the tree should be protected for its amenity contribution to the area and is under threat. This would protect all parts of the tree against wilful damage or destruction. The roots would thus be protected. It can also impose conditions on any work that might affect the parts of the tree that are in the site. The 'site' is the application site. It is not generally competent for the Council to impose conditions on any land that does not form part of the application site, whether the development site and the application site have the same boundaries or not. I think that's the gist of it as I see it. Please anyone correct me if I'm wrong. Anyone acting on this advice does so at their own risk. Please verify it independently before acting. I cannot be held responsible for trying to be helpful for free.