David Humphries

Getting a taste for the local fruits of our forests, here munching away on Wild service berries from yesterday at Kensington Gardens

The interesting thing about this find is that it was from an original site veteran that is now just outside the shrunken reserve due to encroaching housing development and I don't think has the same level of protection as the trees within the nature reserve. Frustratingly I see this all to often, particularly near to work in north London where remnant ancient woodland veterans oaks are now in people's front gardens and get little or no more protection than scabby planted trees around them. Reg's company do most of the work at the site and have created a good number of new pollards on top of the Haloing work they do. Nev Fay carried out the original survey in the 90's http://www.pro-natura.net/publikat-filer/Aspal_report_020811.pdf https://democracy.westsuffolk.gov.uk/documents/s8129/15%200749%20TPO%20-%20Aspal%20Close%20Local%20Nature%20Reserve%20Beck%20Row.pdf No spore collected as Dr Ainsworth is probably the biggest expert on the species and has recorded and studied it at all its main sites. Have you read Martha Crockets paper on the oak poly's ecology? .

Excellent .

Yeah good find indeed, not so much the actual bracket but the importance it places on the trees at that particular site. Worth a trip up there if you get the chance http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/picture-forum/41283-pollards-eye-view.html .

Not sure why you're having the image rotation problem. I've edited them for you. Great context pictures btw Crown looks very healthy and it's had a hefty reduction in the past. Have you sounded the trunk ? Perhaps moving the bench away from the area would reduce the occupancy some more. And reduce the potential for sitting on the grass under it around it by creating a mulch bed? .

Liking that last image Another app for reduction? Small images on the screen, but look like Rigidoporous? .

Just about when the Polaroid camera took over from the box brownie I think .

Agreed, they can and have their place within the work at height hierarchy when planned into a task and used safely...... .

Likewise .

Never come across it anywhere on Oak before sean. Waiting on Martyn Ainsworth at Kew for his thoughts. .

Very cool Sean, looks like you just broke a twix open .

Yep you're spot on, the cuticularis is putting up a barrier to stop the Ganoderma getting in to its feeding territory. Both species are white rot decayers but they are affecting different parts of what makes up the wood to different degrees. Relatively little is known or written about Innonotus cuticularis decay, but I suspect it's similar in characteristics to Inonotus hispidus in that it creates a simultaneous white rot breaking down both the cellulose and lignin within the affected wood. What's really interesting here (well to me anyway ) is that it's on oak rather than its more usual host of beech, so the decay and associated wood quality will be fairly different. Ganoderma resinaceum creates a selective delignification so affects the lignin mostly. .

A large but relatively unspectacular roadside oak which I've known for about 40 years. I used to cycle past it when I was nowt but a nipper. Lost connection with it through me moving on through to different parts of London, but rediscovered it still ticking over about 10 years ago when one of my moves brought me back to the area. I'm not sure who owns it or who's managed it over the years but I personally think (be that very debatable depending on your perspective) that it's been managed well. Here it is in about 6 years ago with a number of desiccating fruitbodies of Psuedoinonotus dryadeus (oak bracket) growing around its base. It puts out brackets most but not every year since I first noted the fruiting. Here it is from earlier this week...... I suspect that an Arb has carried out some level of decay detection with either a Picus or Resistograph over some of the preceding years as the tree has been subjected to a significant reduction about three years ago. Although the pruning can be described as hard, it certainly appears to be healthy enough to have coped with that spec as its putting on and maintaining good foliage and has reduced the risk of it failing. It will be interesting to see how the canopy develops over the next few years If I get the opportunity, I'll update .

Intrigued by the close proximity and seemingly rare association we took a slice through the oak to look at the two decays. You can see from the still attached (but sliced) cuticularis brackets, that the I. c decay is significantly different to the rest of the cross section which affected by the decay of the Ganoderma which is noted as colonising via selective delignification. The border of the cuticularis decay has been enclosed by a thin dark psuedosclerotial plate which is keeping the resinaceum decay from breaching its own section of the wood volume. .

Ganoderma resinaceum here on oak with what appears to be Inonotus cuticularis (the clustered bracket) below it. Alinicoll with the steer toward I. cuticularis. I. cuticularis is more usually found associating with beech. There are a only a handful of records of it in the Uk on oak, so fairly uncommon. .

Great shots Mr Git .

Spent the day with Dr Martyn Ainsworth from the mycology department at Kew and Neil Mahler from the Suffolk Fungus Group (aka Forest Imp) surveying the 200 ancient/veteran oak pollards at Aspal Close Nature Reserve in Suffolk for the rare Oak polypore (Buglossoporus pulvinus-formerly Piptoporus quercinus). After spending a few hours fighting our way through thick bramble and dense herbage and only stumbling on Beefsteak, spindle shank and desiccated chicken of the woods, we only had a hand full of the last oaks to check on the outskirts of the reserve on the way back to the car when we eventually found one fruit body (a first record for the site)........worth the effort ! . http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/tree-fungi-116.html .

Bees making hay (well honey) whilst the decay shines in these Beefsteak and Chicken of the woods riddled veteran oak pollards at the Aspal Close nature reserve in Suffolk. .

Cheers Darrin, my German never became fluent as I left when I was 5 but understand enough to get by. The PDF looks very well presented. The micro images are useful .

We did use the Islington recording sheet at the beginning, but tbh we've stopped doing this. I've got lots of photographic records though, showing branch length, Cardinal point, diameter and context. It's now just an ongoing normal part of our weekly job sheet .

Dysfunction only across a small upper section of the branch but enough to lead to most of the foliage dying.

Starting to find the disease on bigger and bigger diameter branches. This one directly above an entrance to a secondary school. .

Looks like slime flux also known as bacterial wet wood,

Couple of days after visiting this tall ash monolith with our tame local mycologist on a little study programme around Ganoderma identification, it gave up the ghost. We took out the declining canopy about 10 years ago, so it's had a decent length of time standing providing good habitat. .

Oak mildew I'd imagine. Have a read up here..... Oak mildew (Forest Research) Good piece by Dr David Lonsdale here..... http://www.ancienttreeforum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Arb-mag-Spring-2016-powdery-mildew-of-oak.pdf .