Fungus

And do these also count as interesting biomechanics ?

thats a corking bridge graft!

What about the diameter of this shorter one ?

What's with the 'Fly Agaric' sweater that one of the Dutch guys on the Allegro 'Sacred Mushroom' interview, was wearing ?Home made or from some bizzare Myco knitware emporium .

The guys in the interview are Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie, a famous Dutch couple of cabaret performers or comedians and founders of "Het Simplistisch Verbond" (The Simplistic Union), who interviewed Allegro as part of an entire evening on the Fly Agaric, broadcasted on television on Christmas Eve, 23 December 1976.

At the request of Allegro's daughter, the intro to and the part after ending the interview are not shown, because her father was unaware of their intentions, but as a historic "document" it's valuable to me (being the only guy possessing the entire footage), because of the end, in which Koot & Bie "discover", that the sound man, being sent by the a fanatic evangelical broadcasting company to sabotage the interview, had turned of the microphone during the interview and was therefore sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment on the Isle of Man, which of course at that time was a joke, but could have happened later after the influence of orthodox christians grew to the extent that they even were part of our administation with a minister for family issues.

Sounds like something form 'Jacobs Ladder'

Funny you say that, because Jacob's Ladder, just as the Holy Grail, Golden Fleece and Golden or Cosmic Egg (= primordia), also is the symbol of the Fly Agaric, by means of its entheogens or psycho-actives being the ladder making the way up to the gods up in heaven possible for the shaman or priest (pope) and their followers. See :

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnvEHObMMH4]www.youtube.com[/ame]

and : Astrotheology and Shamanism : a review by Gerrit Keizer

................

First is within Beech leaf litter. Very stong smell of garlic

Second is amongst Poplar twigs. (Pholiota lucifera was as near as I could get)

Hi David,

The first is Marasmius alliaceus and the second a Pholiota species, maybe P. lucifera, which normally grows on buried twigs and branches or wood chips of willows.

I heard that it was thier women they fed the agaric to, and drank thier pee!

Neither of the assumptions on people and/or (rein)deer drinking muscimol rich pee is correct.

On one of my visits to the north of Sweden, an old Sami man told me, that in the old days they consumed Fly Agarics as part of religious rituals and ceremonies performed and guided by shamans. While being under the influence of the entheogens (and alcohol), they fed Amanita muscaria to their reindeer to have a good laugh and out of curiosity to see the effects on reindeer, and they also "guided" them to the muscimol rich urine the Sami and their reindeer produced afterwards. The Sami stopped this practice, but the reindeer turned out to be hooked and kept and still are searching for Fly Agarics and their pee detected by smell, because (rein)deer have no or hardly any colour sight, so the "alarming" bright colours of mushrooms represent no warning signs to them.

The horsemen among the Siberian cossacks prepared for war by eating fresh or dried Fly Agarics, which made them more resistent to pain and suppressed feelings of anxiety and when there was not enough "fruit" to be handed out, the foot soldiers drank the muscimol rich urine of the horsemen.

In the Swedish-Danish war at the beginning of the 19th century, the Swedish soldiers even were supplied with dried Amanita muscaria by their own gouvernment .

Have been looking at a lot of my so named 'ostreatus' images at both the colour & dates of when I have come across them. Pretty much all the grey/brown ones (which I would now more confidently ascribe to being ostreatus) are from late October to Febuary.

David,

, followed by one of my photo's on poplar from December.

More shots of Laetiporus decay from one of the Oak vets

To all,

A remark on the fruiting of Laetiporus sulphureus. Don't overlook the "clouds" of cinnamon coloured chlamydospores producing anamorph Ceriomyces aurantiacus (photo), which is mostly found present in hollows of veteran oaks in spring and/or summer.

......well, in the garden actually

Boletus versicolor, in me front garden

Nice . In the Netherlands, over the last 5 years, there were two reports of Boletus chrysenteron s.l. actually present inside buildings, both times in a cellar of a house fruiting from the tips of a root of an oak, which had penetrated the cellar wall a metre below the garden floor from the outside to "tap" moisture from the cellar.

Coriolopsis gallica (MushroomExpert.Com)

Seems to be more likely now ive seen this, not that I doubted Fungus just went looking for C. gallica, iether way I now must do whatever it takes to get a decent scope and a trinocular one at that. time to sell off some less important assets!

Tony,

Also see : Coriolopsis trogii.

You could use my old avatar:lol:

Rob,

I hope you were not motivated by my remarks on your old avatar to replace it ?

Though no remnant FB's to suggest another Fungi at work.

David,

The partner in crime of Collybia fusipes could be Armillaria lutea (= A. bulbosa), a saprotrophic Honey Fungus, mostly leading a hidden life inside cavities in trunks, which in this case only fruits (panic reproduction) after the tree has been felled and the mycelium (and rhizomorphs or plaques) is/are exposed to light (and more oxygen).

After the introduction of wood chips and thick layers of it being left behind in parks and on horse trails through woods in The Netherlands, their was such an explosion of until then unknown or rare wood decomposing species, I had to write three articles on the subject. And it was in 1999, that fruiting on a heap of wood chips with an inside temperature of 70 degrees Celsius at 30 centimetres below the surface, I found my first new species for the world : Agrocybe rivulosa.

One of the species profiting from this was Armillaria lutea, which with its rhizomorphs using the wood chips as a comfortable pathway or stepping stones to the base of trees, arriving at the base of the trunk "went under" and infected the poorly protected central wood column from underneath with rhizomorphs and/or hyphae protected by melanine plaques, and in going upwards created cavities even much bigger then the one you show in your photo.

Although Roger Phillips states that 'P. ostreatus' fruits all year. Maybe differing season than in Holland ?

David,

I don't think so. Besides, it's generally accepted, that the mycelium of P. ostreatus needs a frost bite or shock to start fruiting and that is why they "developed" and use P. ostreatus fm. Florida for making all year human consumption possible.

And Phillips also depicts P. lignatilis, which - in my opinion - is a species fruiting in autumn, and can only be distinguised from P. pulmonarius, a species mainly fruiting at the end of spring and in summer, by measuring the size of the spores.

No, this is not a reliable identification characteristic, young brackets of Fomitopsis pinicola, Fomes fomentaris, Phellinus igniarius and Ganoderma pfeifferi can deceptively look the same. With young brackets, only the "fire" test with a match combined with a test with caustic potash can help discrimenating between the three of them.

The fire test with the match has the following results :

- by close fire contact with the crust on top, nothing much happens with brackets of Fomes fomentarius and Phellinus igniarius,

- by close fire contact with the sub-surface yellow layer (showing after nail scratch) of the brackets of Ganoderma pfeifferi, sparkles come off, just like when you strike a match close to the surface of an at the same time bruised fresh orange peel,

- by close fire contact with the surface of brackets of Fomitopsis pinicola, the resins stored in the crust catch fire and slowly turn to blackening spots.

The effects of the caustic potash test can be found in the book by Schwartze, Engels & Mattheck under 3.3.1.3. Possibilities of Misidentification, page 61.

Excuse me a moment while I go and gently bang my head against something very hard...

Janey,

Better to bang your head against something very hard, then to bang it to a horse chestnut, of which the trunk severely has been decayed by Ganoderma australe : Anne Frank tree video and photo's (2).

Pfeifferi I know well enough and the red band on the fresh forming layers would give it away surely? its common name the red banded polypore?

Tony,

No, this is not a reliable identification characteristic, young brackets of Fomitopsis pinicola, Fomes fomentaris and Ganoderma pfeifferi can deceptively look the same. With young brackets, only the "fire" test with a match combined with a test with caustic potash can help discrimenating between the three of them.

i know its in kent, but never have I found it myself, need to get into some old growth pines.

Maybe it is more around then you think, because on beech (or birch) it is often mistaken for Fomes fomentarius, Ganoderma pfeifferi or Phellinus igniarius. And if it is there, you must be aware of the intensive brown rot it causes.

so do we think davids may be austriaca then?

Tony,

The only definitive answer to that question can be given by the microscope .

Pleurotus ostreatus

This time a year and with these entirely whitish to creamish stalked fruitbodies, I think it would probably be Pleurotus pulmonarius.

what a pretty shot, would love to see this fungi, contrasts so well on birch bark:001_cool:

Tony,

Is it not (yet) found and documented in the UK then ?

do the scarlet elf cups open so much in maturity?

Tony,

To my knowledge, and I have seen a lot of both species in The Netherlands over the last 30 years, Sarcoscypha austriaca, the more general species over here, sometimes does and S. coccinea (photo) does not.

It must be a coincidence you asking me this, because I - that is to say, my then four years old daughter - found "my" first Scarlet Elf Cup (photo) ever from hidden alder branches fruiting between mosses at the side of a pond in Broadmayne in the southern UK.

D Lonsdale has made reference to some work that he & Swarze did back in the nineties talking about the possibility of two european forms of Fomes.

A northern & a southern form.

Do you have any knowledge/views on this?

David,

Knowledge no, views yes. Travelling in different European countries, I noticed Fomes to be on totally different tree species, f.i. in The Netherlands first it only was found on birches and much later on beech, sometimes on oak, poplar (along rivers) and lime and even less often on a few other tree species such as Alnus and Aesculus. In Luxemburg I found extremely big brackets of up to 80 cm in diameter on beech trunks laying on the forest floor, in Sweden it is mostly on birch and only on beech in the southern part of the country, as far as there are beeches around and in Poland you can often find Fomes on Acer standing alongside roads. The same seems to be the case with Fomitopsis pinicola, which in The Netherlands first was found on spruce and then "jumped" to beech and birch, just as I ten years earlier found it in Luxemburg on the only fallen birch (photo) in a spruce forest, which lots of spruces being attacked by it, again on Acer along roadsides in Poland and in Sweden and near the German-Czech border on Prunus.

So I would not be surprised if either or both of Fomes and Fomitopsis have different forma with highly adaptive strategies, depending on the region and the dominant tree species they fruit on.

---

and Laeti, amoung many others ...

... such as Fistulina hepatica.

Despite a lack of fruit body to confirm I am 100% certain this decay is the work of Polyporus squamosus, the tree species Populus nigra the mode of entry, wound, and the aggressive white rot of the entire ripewood region and distinct mycelial matt within the pith core.

Tony,

You could also consider Pholiota populnea to be the cause of the intensive white rot as shown in the first and last photo, of which the mycelium does not (often) fruit on a standing poplar, but only/mostly produces fruitbodies after the tree has been felled or fallen down and especially fruits from the vertical saw cut surface of the trunk once it is laying on the ground with soil contact. So you sometimes have to wait a while for the villain to show its ugly heads/caps .

Will now add Podocypha to this happy little gathering.

David,

Are you sure this is Podoscypha spp. and not Abortiporus biennis ?