Fungus

Trametes gibbosa on Chestnut logs from today.

With dried out brackets of Bjerkandera adusta above it, on which mycelium T. gibbosa starts as a parasite (successor).

I would also suggest checking for any signs of bats using that large cavity i.e. droppings, mouth wings, staining from urine and or from where their bodies touch the tree as the enter and leave it.

Good point .

I was asked by a journalist to evaluate the damage done to this Taxodium by a dog (Alsatian type), which on a daily basis was incited by his female owner to scratch and bite five Taxodium's in a park. Of the older trees, the one in the photo was the most severely vandalized, two young trees, which were damaged to an even much greater extent, had to be felled. Although the owner of the dog is known, there was no action taken by the police or local authorities, not even after an article in a newspaper.

1. Is this a 'rule' then for fruiting bodies on trees? When we see the fruiting body it is generally for the the reason you have stated?

2. I guess brown rot is easier for the bird to break ...

1. For annual fruiting macrofungi, and especially for the biotrophic parasites, such as Pholiota squarroides and Meripilus giganteus, it is, for perrenial brackets producing macrofungi, such as Phellinus igniarius or Ganoderma lipsiense it is not, in the panic reproduction phase they retract or withdraw their latest formed layers on top of the old pores.

2. Correct and they don't have to remove that much woodfibres remaining from white rotters, they just have to "jump up and down" a bit to create a cavity for nesting .

do you refer to the first time for Oude & Oak in Holland ?

I meant to say : the first and only time Oudemansiella mucida ever was found fruiting on oak.

Hares or deer, without seeing the area its hard to tell

Or an envious neighbour ?

I assume its rarity is due to the lack of hosts in proximity to where it sporolates?

Marco,

In The Netherlands, no. In Sweden, Belgium and Germany (maybe) yes.

1. So that I understand this correctly. When I see a fruiting body of such dimension (about 18 inces across for the P. squamosus) and vigour it is an indication that the fungus has stopped feeding and is now reproducing to 'find a new host'?

2. I have a similar situation with a Laetiporus sulphureus on Quercus robur. This time the target is a few rabbits and other trees in the vicinity. My prognosis is to allow this to veteranise itself and make a habitat for beasties (there is also Woodpecker damage around the fruiting body suggesting it is very weak at this point?)

Marco,

1. No, not stopped but intensivied the white rot and "consumption" of cellulose to - maybe for the last time - fruit to "find a new host".

2. Laetiporus sulphureus is part of the tree species specific ecosystem of Quercus robur. It facilitates the tree to become a veteran by making it hollow (brown rot), after which the meanwhile too heavy and no longer functional crown breaks, the big branches fall off and then are replaced by a top "wig" of smaller branches originating from activated sleeping branch buds, which take over the fotosynthesis and supply the tree and its ecosystem with enough energy to survive and become old.

And I have last year written an article (in German) on the preference of woodpeckers for brown rotted over white rotted trees.

Abortiporus biennis.

Multiple annual fan- to rosette-shaped brackets in stemmed tufts, 8-20 cm in diameter, with thin, undulate margin, upper surface finely velvety-felty, whitish or ochraceous to reddish brownish, tubes white, 2-5 mm long, pores 1-3 pro mm, irregularly reticulate to labyrinthine, whitish, staining pink-reddish-brown on bruising. Stem usually sunk into the soil, 4-7 X 2-3 cm, flesh soft to hard, white, smell unpleasant, spores white.

On stumps or buried wood and at the base of trunks of Populus, Ulmus, Quercus and Fagus, sometimes fruiting from roots at some distance of the tree. The species is especially making Quercus rubra, Ulmus and Populus unstable.

Sometimes mistaken for (young) Meripilus giganteus.

Occasionally together with the anamorph Ceriomyces terrestris in the form of white bulbs with red guttation drops.

Found this Polyporus squamosus on a Tilia sp yesterday on an old storm tear. Target unfortunately is a kiddies playpark. The significant size of the fruiting body suggests it is flourishing well and has plenty to consume? I am considering making a recommendation that it be removed on the grounds of safety as it is a white rotter and therefore tensile and compressive strength is diminished. This tree will be subject to windsnap I suspect? Your verdict would be welcome

There is also another smaller bracket of the same species in the picture further up the stem on an old pruning wound

On Tilia and with panic reproduction this early in season, one can expect the mycelium to fruit once again in autumn. Considering the risk because of the wood behind the old storm tear soon being completely decayed by white rot and because of the location, I would (also) advise to fell it.

Spongipellis spumeus

Annual brackets or consoles 5-20 cm wide, whitish to cream, then grayish, surface felty, flesh white, duplex layered, upper layer spongy, lower layer fibrous and tough, tubes long, white, with white round pores 2-4 pro mm, spores white.

Mostly fruiting from wounds and cavities on/in the trunk of old impaired descideous trees, such as Aesculus, Ulmus and Populus. Causing a white rot decay of the central wood column.

Sometimes mistaken for Aurantioporus fissilis.

Assuming the copyright on the photo's and texts is respected and permission for using of both photo's and texts is asked for, I open this guide, depicting and describing macrofungi, which are not included in Fungi on Trees, An Arborist's Field Guide (2011), but need to be identified because of their possible detrimental effects on trees.

whats going on here (we took this padus down as a result)

Rob,

Did you also consider you could be dealing with Tripe fungus (Auricularia mesenterica), provided the brackets have a gelatinous or rubbery structure ? Maybe Tony can have another look at it ?

Can anyone tell me what these are? Found on Robinia pseudoacacia

Most probably Phellinus robustus, a perennial biotrophic parasite causing an intensive simultaneous white rot, in this case resulting in a possible mechanical failure of the stem base and/or rootplate.

In sharing photo's (© G.J. Keizer) of the very rare Artomyces (= Clavicorona) pyxidatus, which before only was documented and depicted from its first finding in Sweden in Jahn's "Pilze die an Holz wachsen", I try to draw your attention to the characteristics of this beautiful coral fungus.

A. pyxidatus has since 2006 been found at six locations in The Netherlands, two in Belgium and recently at one in Germany, where it always has been found fruiting from old wet laying trunks of Populus tremula.

In the close up you can see why it originally was called "coronata", the crowned one.

Is either the gall midge Obolodiplosis robiniae or the mining moth Phyllonorycter robiniella (see photo) present in the UK on leaves of Robinia pseudoacacia ?

And here is an example of both the mycelium of Laetiporus sulphureus (brownrot) and of Armillaria ostoyae (black melanine plaques) decomposing the heartwood of the trunk of a Quercus robur at 6 metres, which only became visible after the tree had been felled because of the rotting pruning wound at this height.

And : http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/ecology/28849-keizers-fungi-q-10.html#post477324

And the following photo of the same Quercus robur, which not only lost its bark at be base of the trunk, but also broke at 8 metres hight because of the white rot of Armillaria ostoyae, which first had invaded the cambium with rhizomorphs up to that hight.

By the way, this was the oak on which for the first time ever Oudemansiella mucida also was found.

for some reason i just don't think it is P. ostreatus, i know your the expert and i'm probably wrong:lol: but it just doesn't "feel" (gut) like it??

Rob,

After developing reddish spots on top, P. ostreatus entirely turns pale to reddish brown.

nope none?

So we can exclude Chondrostereum purpureum ?

Please note the following warning as to the effects of unnessary removal of perennial brackets of macrofungi.

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/tree-health-care/29135-butt-pollarding-oak-tree-2.html#post477795

is it possible to distinguish a species of Armilaria from it's Rhizomorph eg Colour/Size ?

David,

No, just by certain characteristics of the fruitbodies, such as :

- the either present or missing scales on the cap,

- the olive green or more yellowish colour of the more or less bulbous to not bulbous, but tapered base of the stem, and

- by the colour of the margin of the underside of the well developed annulus to nearly absent ring (Armillaria lutea), with A. mellea having a whitish ring with yellowish marginal zone and A. ostoyae a less developed whitish ring with dark brown to black scales on the lower surface of the ring, as you can see on one of your photo's in your Fungi Directory, I corrected the name of.

Also see pages 166 -167 of my encyclopaedia for a complete macroscopical description of all three species.

Phillips makes mention of it as rare, but because of it's size I'd imagine it's probably just overlooked.

Or mistaken for or false identified as a myxomycete, which has not yet "ripened" completely.

See and compare the last four photo's of : http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/members/fungus-albums-rhizomorphs-armillaria.html

And : http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/ecology/28849-keizers-fungi-q-10.html#post477324

don't think its the dryinus?

I agree, much too reddish brown for a dried out Pleurotus dryinus, which mostly also has an excentrical stem, so based on the colour and the absence of a stem, P. ostreatus would be right.