daltontrees

I'd say it's Pholiota too.

I am just wondering, when you planted this tree did you have a sling round the butt of it at any time, particularly to lift it out of the ground at the nursery or to lower it (rootballed) into the planting hole? That would be one good explanation of the bark damage at the base.

I suspect the answer to this is not simple at all. Perhaps fpor some species the use of seed energy reserves to gain height quickly is a life-or-death adaptation whereas in others the ability to develop photosynthesising capacity very quickly from very little energy reserves (tiny seeds) is everything. Generally growth rate (and I don't mean height, I mean total leaf area) is proportional to temperature but can be inhibited or boosted by respiration which is not so simply proportional to temperature. On top of that there are diurnal cycles that happen, once initiated, regardless of actual light and temperature. To quote from "The physiology of flowering plants" - "... it has scarcely been possible evaluate the effect of any one factor on photosynthesiswithout specifying the status of other factors. The rate of photosynthesis is affected by irradiance, CO2 concentration, temperature, plant water stsus, wind speed and the degree of stomatal opening.The effect of varying any one of these factors depends on the value of the others." So, growth rate is affected by (i) photosynthesis and (ii) the species strategy for converting seed reserves into leaf area, height and other physical attributes. The first is complex, see quote above. The second is complex too and dependent largely on species characteristics. And some plants are predisposed to commence germination at lower temperatures than others and to thrive on short day lengths, and in the case of woody plants to initiate bud-burst at different day lengths. Again I expect it is to do with the circumstances for optimum survival and competition in which the species evolved. So you and your mussus are both right. You could try it next spring, all you need is some pots, a ruler, a thermometer, a sheet of graph paper, some seeds of a variety of species planted in pots every few days.

Thanks Mr Humphries, great video there. If I ever see these again I'll know what they are. I can't seem to find out much more about these slime moulds. I wonder if it's significant that they were spotted on Araucaria and whether you can read anything into their presence that you couldn't from looking at the tree generally? The usual 2 minute unscientific sprint through Google only indicates that the genus lives on deadwood, and that there are a few sites from Australia about it, maybe because of an Araucaria connection?

I have a maul and an axe but today I was using the grenade and a 2.5kg hammer to open up some monster twisted rounds of willow, no maul in the world would have got through them. Sometimes if an axe or maul goes across the rays it sticks, and the point of a grenade is the only thing that can pick out the weakness. A club hammer? Jeez, I wouldn't have any knuckles left!

It could well be P. adiposa. Great to see the same fungus pictured a few days apart. You could totally indulge us and get another pic in a few days time and see if the caps have gone sticky?

The AA book suggests getting some Pseudotrametes gibbosa going on the stump, I imagine the idea is to get it to gobble up the food source to weaken the Armillaria as it is trying to spread to a new host. Spreading will depend on type of Honey Fungus and the species of tree it could spread to, for example A. ostoyea is known for conifers (mainly if not only) and may not spread to adjacent broadleaves. Also a few species are resistant to HF, like Yew or Box Elder.

If you have free wood and room to store it near your back door, you can't beat a stove. Mine's a Dovre 7kW 500, it's tropical in the front room, daren't shut the door.

Yep you can get replacement shafts at Nordic Outdoor for £13.

You should be able to get the old head put on a new shaft for a fraction of the price of a new axe. Burn or drill out the old wood. If getting a wholke new axe, don't get him a fibreglass shaft, the vibrations are quite sore compared to hickory.

Either report him or forget about it. The guy's either followed the spec or he hasn't.

Bizarre! My guess is that that cavity has been there for a good while and there is a proto-soil in there which is suitable for the sort of fungus you would normally find in a mulchy situation. I found a n Amethyst deceiver inside a tree last week, for example. My first reaction was it was Amanita muscaria, which can occasionally be seen with those white blisters only round the rim and with a largely blister-free red cap. Looking forward to hearing mopre about gills etc...

Respect! That is a proper tree. I can see why the Council was reluctant to let it go and why root pruning close-in would have created an unacceptable hazard.

There is some recent trenching (possibly gas main) along the footway on the same side as the Meripilus main outbreaks (which I expect is the cause of the infection), but the Meripilus is also now popping through some pinched bark on another quarter. This tree could stand up for another 15 years, the footway is the windward side and so far there is no sign of canopy thinning but it's a busy road with queuing traffic at traffic lights. 24m high and a spread radius of about 14 metres, ludicrously overextended lower limbs. It's TPO'd, magnificent and prominent. It's a brave man that will leave it very long. Risk managers, lawyers and insurers don't seem willing to live in tree-time.

I suppose it would have been better if I hasd just said 'isn't it good for everyone that the system was put together well in the first place and works in practice?' All that fuss about that wee tree in that dodgy condition? Sort of tree that gets removed to get at a real tree. Shame on the Council! Out of curiosity, did the Inspector award costs?

I will send you a PM initially about this. Valuation hasn't really been raised on Arbtalk and it might deserve a separate thread. An unproven common ownership on a hedgerow is a fine example of the inadequacies of current valuation thinking, but debating a specific case in public I would suggest is not the best way to debate the generalities.

Me too, and hopefully the Council too and all onlookers whatever their persuasion. Whom would have thought there was so much to interpret in so few words of some (seemingly) obscure legislation? Is it not thus that the will of Parliament is voiced again and again, and that the common man finds solace in his place with power? And vice versa?

6 months later and I have finally got round to replying. Attachd is before and after pictures of dried out specimen. I had begun to think that those gills were not gills at all but fibres within the fruiting body. Despite close examination of dried and rehydrateds specimen I could not find anything resembling pores. But revisiting the tree this week kind of answered the question. Last spring there was no evidence of such extensive fruiting having taken place. This year it seems to have gone bonkers. In conclusion the rehydration was not particularly helpful in this case.

Sounds like you are heading for a non-acrimonious outcome. Always good news! Regarding valuations, it is entirely possible to carry out a Hwelliwell valuation of a tree as-is and then a valuation of the same tree if it was pruned back. This is because the measurement part of the Helliwell system can easily be adapted to the measurements of a hypothetically pruned tree. A simple example would be this. Tree before pruning has canopy profile area of 120m2, gets 6 Helliwell points. The other factors (life expectancy, importance, other trees, relation to setting and form) come to 30 points. 6 x 30 x £28/point = £5,040. Tree after pruning has a canopy profile area of 90m2, gets 5 Helliwell points. The other factors are the same. New value 5 x 30 x £28 = £4,200. But of course it's not that simple. If the pruning changes the 'form' rating of the tree by one category, its value becomes £2,100. If the pruning only reduced the area to 100m2, there is no change in value because there is no change in area category. These are flaws inherent in the Helliwell system. Using it blindly like a calculator is dangerous.

That's a decent shout, thanks.

Could well be one of the Hypholoma, I was hedging my bets because almost everyone of the mushrooms had half a veil (i.e. on one side only) close under the cap.

Nearby, these on the remains of what I think must have been Alder.

I am not sure what these are, possibly Armillaria? Host completely hollow and unidentifiable.

This one is my favourite though, I suppose this is geotropism in acvtion. Fomes fomentarius on (unidentifiable) fallen stem, the stem seems to have been in various orientations before coming to its current position. HAs produced a lovely spiral shell-like bracket.

Some pictures from Glen Nevis at the weekend. Amanita muscaria, Piptoporus betulinus and Ganoderma adspersum.