Fungus

To all, Has the death of Fraxinus caused by the anamorph Chalara fraxinea of Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus already reached the U.K. ? Coming from Germany, since 2010 it has invaded the north-eastern parts of The Netherlands with lots of young and some older ashes dying as a consequence. On Rügen (Germany), in 2009 it has killed hundreds of old ashes. The symptoms are : - development of yellowish to copper canker spots or necroses without slimy base on the bark of trunks and branches, causing the transport of water and nutrients locally to be blocked, - followed by dying of one to two year old shoots or twigs, - especially during summer, withering of the foliage occurs, - in young ashes the process develops much quicker then in old trees and underneath the died twigs and branches sometimes a fasciate shooting of clusters of new twigs is documented. ---

Tony, It has some distinct characteristics of Fomitopsis pinicola, the very fine yellowish pores locally turning reddish (after guttation), the yellowish sharp margin of the perennial bracket and the multiple reddish concentric zoning of the crust. And in The Netherlands it was, apart from Coniophora species living on/of dead wood, the first necrotrophic parasitic species to cause brown rot in beech, on which it meanwhile has become quite common.

Sure, fine with me, Tony. It's a pity, the English version is not and will not be made available on the internet, like the Dutch version Soortenbank.nl : Paddenstoelen is since 2010.

David, Did you identify the species ? To me it looks a lot like a perennial bracket of Fomitopsis pinicola, which causes brown rot in this beech.

See : Splanchnonema Platani or Massaria inspection

Thanks Matt, I thought something like this was meant. The Dutch tree company Cobra, I am a parttime partner and consultant of, in 2008 has in cooperation with the Technical University of Eindhoven developed a high altitude inspection camera attached to a telescopical pole, which is mounted on a quad with a monitor and a recording device. The camera has a 36x zoom lens and reaches up to 17 metres, thus making the inspection of Massaria on Platanus, detection of the fly out openings of Scolytus scolytus and the presence of occupied bird's nests from the ground floor possible without needing MEWP's. See : Inspection of Platanus on Massaria and : High Altitude Camera Inspection video. -------

And who other then me, of course , would also recommend : Keizer's Interactive Guide to Mushrooms and other Fungi

Tony, , see Strophariaceae : Pholiota aurivella on Clive's Forest Fungi of New Zealand

1. No, the diagnosis of the Ganoderma was not done by taking a sample of the reproductive layers and checking the size of the spores with a microscope, which should be standard procedure with G. australe or G. lipsiense on Aesculus (and some other tree species, such as Salix, Populus, Quercus rubra and Acer, i.e. A. saccharinum), but done from photo by a German consultant, erroneously identifying it as G. lipsiense. 2. No increment core was taken to further assist in confirming both inconclusive picus tests or the reliability of the pull test and the "body language" of the about ten big perrenial and about six panic fruiting small, partially sterile brackets was not "read", nor interpreted correctly.

David, What does Mewps stand for ?

Yes I have, look for the volva surrounding the base of the stem and you will know why this is Volvariella gloiocephala (= V. speciosa), a species, which also has pink spores and mainly fruits on mulch and rotting wood chips.

Although being a public figure, I am not. If you can read and understand Dutch a bit, here's the debate on a public forum, I (= Zwam) engaged in : Bomenforum.nl : Waar gebeurt wat ? Sub-boards Anne Frank boom : Nogmaals Anne Frank boom + Anne Frank boom. So you see, no "hush hush", covering up or keeping the public uninformed and ignorant was tolerated by a few of the also participating critical collegues in the discussion and me.

Either or both, whatever pleases you most .

Meaning ???

David, If one needs an excuse for mistakes or misjudgements one makes, a scape goat is easily found, especially after so many "experts" having been in the papers and on telly two-and-a-half years before. And yes, there were some (minor) deficiencies in the construction, but even a stable scaffolding could not have prevented the tree from breaking and taking the structure with it in its fall. Because of my expertise and evaluation not having been taken serious and trying to keep me outside the debate, I turned my back on the persons and organisations involved and gave them a hard time for not taking their responsability by exposing them publically.

1. No, C. truncorum has no "mica" on top and normally fruits with single, somewhat bigger fruitbodies, but 100 % sure, microscope 2. No, H. sublateritium is far more red on top and has different coloured, i.e. more yellowish gills, which by the way makes me wonder whether it was on wood of a coniferous tree, because then it could also be H. capnoides with the more greyish lamellae of the three 3. If Armillaria, my guess would be A. ostoyae.

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Here's the list; 1. Agaricus silvaticus 2. Bolbitius vitellinus 3/5/10. Armillaria species, maybe A. mellea 4. Collybia fusipes ??? photo is too dark to be sure 6/7. Hypholoma (= Psilocybe) fascicularis 8. Mycena cf. vitilis 9. Coprinus micaceus.

1. They had done a picus twice on the Anne Frank tree, showing no conclusive evidence of the decay (I have seen both reports), and ignored the signs from the body language of G. australe I pointed out from photo's I was sent, a combination of about 10 big perennial brackets and about 6 panic fruiting small ones, the older ones having been on the tree for many years. On top of this, the roots of the tree had an infection with Armillaria rhizomorphs and it was partially defoliated by the caterpillars of a mining moth for three years in a row. They then went to court to have the felling order lifted because of the historic and emotional value of Anne Frank's diary tree, won the case by selectively informing (tunnel vision) the judge and invested 70.000 euro in a scaffolding construction, which should have held the tree upright in a storm for at least 10 to 15 years and then, two-and-a-half years later - luckely without causing further damage - it broke in a mild storm. 2. Neither have Quercus rubra, Populus and Salix species and some Acer species, in particular A. saccharinum. And even Q. robur can become quite dangerous by delamination and/or torsion cracks at a rather short term (photo with reduced, almost completely sterile panic reproduction of G. australe). ---------

Tony, Yes it was, but you were a bit too hasty to await my editing of the post, I ended with : "Laetiporus sulphureus never fruited on the tree, neither before, nor afterwards."

Tony, Wow, impressive , these pictures could just as well have been from the Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam. If this does not convince Janey of the danger of overlooking total decomposition of horse chestnuts by G. australe, because it (often) happens without warning signs from the outside body language of the tree, what will.

Here is a photo of a pedunculate oak close to a church only showing the body language of a large upward pointed triangular vertical swelling of the bark until I took Mattheck on a tour around some of my research objects in The Netherlands. I am sorry I didn't make photo's before I let Claus have a go at it with his VTA-hammer . Laetiporus sulphureus never fruited on the tree, neither before, nor afterwards.

O.k. , but I am surprised you, being a fung guy, did not also notice the Oudemansiella mucida "eating" its way towards the trunk at the right bottom side of the photo .

I meant the horizontal "branch" is just as thick as the parts of the trunks it bridges and connects.

And do these also count as interesting biomechanics ?