Fungus

And then there is the phenomenon of both "clean air" indicators and polluted air tolerant lichens on the same tree, where you find representatives of the indicators of clean air on the side of the tree out of the most dominant wind direction and the pollution (ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide) tolerant lichens, such as Xanthoria's, on the side of the tree, which is most "hit" by winds from the prevailing wind direction.

Tony, Unless you're planning on making lots of microscopical photo's, there is a lot of overkill in a trinocular with 35 mm photography attachment, you may have to pay extra for. I would advise a more basic binocular light microscope with oil immersion, standard objectives up to a total enlargement of 1.000 x and a calibrated measering objective to start with. And did you realize, that once you start using a microscope, you need a lot of extra money to complete your mycological library with ?

David, That would especially be helpful in studying tiny Ascomycetes, such as Bisporella or Nectria spp. or of the surface of Sphaeriales, such as Ustulina deusta and Hypoxylon spp. and of the pores or spines of Aphyllophorales.

Sorry, no, as it still is an unanswered question what caused the illness of the mycologists consuming it. Besides, they survived without after effects, so there is no risk of "topping" yourself. Two explanations have been suggested : - It could have been an allergic reaction in association with or to specific medication, like I have for some years suffered from after taking certain prescribed medicins and eating lots of Boletus edulis and B. badius, Leccinum rufum, Hydnum repandum and Cantharellus cibarius collected in the Eifel, when I lived there. - It could be due to changes in the genetic characteristics of the fungus caused by solar outbursts or explosions, as is suggested for the Tricholoma species in France. If needed, I can provide a list of medicins of which has been proven, that they interact with the chitine component of the mushrooms.

Sensible buy, this stereo microscope. The next level would be buying a light microscope with oil immersion and an enlargement level of at least 1.000 x, so you can start saving for this and for a complete renewal of your library on mycology too .

Sean, As a forest ecologist and mycologist, I have to comment on this, as I have been and still are an opponent of companies selling these products for many years and wrote two articles (in Dutch) on the subject of artificially introducing mycorrhizae to the roots of trees. In The Netherlands, some fifteen years ago, products developed by Marx, called Tree Saver, Mycor Tree and Root Dip, were introduced on the Dutch "arb-market". At first it was booming bussiness for the exclusive retailer of these "preparations" until a collegue and I wrote an article ending with the following conclusions : - After evaluating (the summaries of) the by then 200.000 articles written on the subject, we concluded, that one third of the short term (2-5 years) studies showed a benificial effect on the condition of the trees after the preparation had been applied to the roots, one third showed no, i.e. a neutral effect and one third even showed a short term detrimental effect. At that time, no case studies evaluating the effects after 10 to 15 years were performed. Follow ups on some of the case studies however showed, that the short term benificial effects after 5 to 10 years were followed by detrimental effects, which can be explained by the trees initially showing better growth being "too speedy runners", where slow growth in accordance with the succession within the tree species specific life cycle should have taken place and because of that finally ended up dead long before passing the finish line of the life time marathon. Conclusion : the trees only grew faster because of the appliance of a water buffering gel with minerals and nutrients and not because of the spores of mycorrhizal fungi (see the next paragraph). - Apart from the fast uptake minerals and/or blood and bone powder and a water buffering jelly, the preparations contain spores of one to three ectomycorrhizal macrofungi, such as Pisolithus arhizus, Laccaria spp. and Thelephora terrestris, and of endomycorrhizal microfungi, such as Glomus, Endogone and Gigaspora species. P. arhizus is an indiginous species, associating with very young birch, willow and pine growing on mounds of extreme acidious waist of cole mines, which mycelium needs a Ph 1-2 to develop. Both Laccaria and Thelephora terrestris are pioneers, of which the by wind dispersed spores are always and everywhere present, which means they don't need to be introduced at all. And if a tree would benefit from (unnecessary) artificial introduction of spores, only tree species associated with ectomycorrhizal macrofungi could. Because spores of Glomus, Endogone and Gigaspora are from 0,1 to 0,6 millimetres in size, they need dispersion in the soil through worm canals and by ants, which "plant" them on the roots of trees of whose mycorrhizal structures they in return "harvest" secreted sugar from. So artificially introducing these spores in the soil implicates, that they become locked in, because the ants (and the worms) are not introduced as well. Besides, only trees which are associated with AM-fungi can benefit from their introduction, provided the spores ever reach the tree roots. So introducing these products into the soil food web is like firing a shower of shot hoping one of the balls hits target and could unintendedly be a stimulant for extra and better growth of grasses and other plants, which also depend on endomycorrhizal microfungi for deliverance of the nutrients from the soil. And finally there is the aspect of ecosystem falsification by introducing a modified species of Pisolithus, which already is indigenous. - And then there is the effect of competition between different species already present or introduced in the soil food web. In an experiment in a Dutch city, Platanus was planted alongside a street. Only half of the trees were given a root dip before being planted. For the first three years, the trees, which had not been "treated", grew better and showed more and better foliage then the "treated" trees did. After three years, the last ones started to recover and it took them more then five years to be just as vital as the non-treated trees meanwhile were. The explanation lies below surface. The trees were coming from a very old nursery, were they already had been living in symbiosis with one or more species of endomycorrhizal microfungi, which were then transported on/with the roots to the new location. Immediately after replant, a territorial war started between the already present mycorrhizae and the introduced spores trying to get a foothold on the roots. And where did they get their money (energy) for warfare from : from the roots of their "sugar daddy", which under the circumstances, could not afford itself to share so much energy, which it needed itself for recovering from the shock of being uprooted and replanted. - The following examples demonstrate the innecessity of introduction of spores. Beech has a special relationship with Laccaria amethystina, of which the mycelium is colonizing the finer and secondary tree roots of seedlings and old beeches coming to the end of their life cycle. Because of this it has been very beneficial for replanted beech hedges to introduce some spores and hyphae rich "litter" from the soil of a beech forest in the plant holes. A friend once brought a young birch from the forest to her backyard and planted it in a wooden barrel. After two years, the surface of the soil was completely covered with Telephora terrestris. At a tree nursery, around very young Tilia's planted in degradeble containers, a Hebeloma spp. spontaneously fruited. After moving the Tilia's outside, they were replanted three times before twelve of them reached their final destination. Three years after the definitive replant the Hebeloma reappeared with lots of fruitbodies, showing the trees had meanwhile become so vital, that they could afford sharing their energy supply with the mushroom. A tree company asked me to deliver a lecture at a conference. Outside some new techniques were demonstrated. The paving stones around a very well foliaged Acer were removed and a hole was dug to show the effects of the previous introduction of oxygen and nutrients at one metre depth into the soil. The roots from that depth did not show any signs of being covered with endomycorrhizae. After me lifting another paving stone, a colony of "sugar" ants was disturbed, living from the secretion of the endomycorrhizae on the roots, which had grown upwards to collect oxygen and moisture from condensation in the cavity underneath the stone. Final conclusion. Selling these products is very beneficial and profitable to the retailers and - on the long run - detrimental to the condition of the tree. Even though recently some "new" products were developed by a Dutch company, which still are in its experimental testing phase, I refuse taking on assignments of clients still applying these preparations. As I sometimes say to tree managers asking my opnion : its best for your budget and less detrimental to the tree to hold your purse with copper coins up side down above the plant hole of the tree, then to empty your wallet for these expensive products.

Tony, Neither did I, until I "met" this atypical one, which looked like a very large G. lucidum, but after determening its microscopical characteristics, turned out to be yet another type of emergency reproduction fruiting of G. resinaceum.

Tony, 1. In my opinion, this is an old bracket of Ganoderma lipsiense, which has "recycled" its inner tissue and of which the remains of the tubal and pore layers have been "destroyed" by the falling off of the nipple galls of Agathomyia wankowiczi. To be sure, you'll need to collect some reddish brown spores and check their size with a microscope. 2. Of Bulgaria inquinans, no anamorph (of the genus Chalara) is documented, see : MycoBank, the fungal website. I would suggest it is the "dripping down" plasmodium phase of a myxomycete, such as Badhamia utriformis.

Matt, 1. O.k. with me, but note, that both the anamorph and the teleomorph of Oligoporus ptychogaster only grow on dead wood of coniferous trees. 2. I'm 90 % sure its is Hypholoma (= Psilocybe) fasciculare, the only other possibility would be H. capnoides, provided it grows on dead coniferous wood.

David, Good documentation of Inonotus hispidus on Sorbus. In The Netherlands, I. hispidus is quite often found on Sorbus intermedia, on which it sometimes fruits together with Daedaleopsis confragosa. In the photo, the brownish coloured rot to the left is the soft rot caused by the mycelium of Inonotus and the cream to yellowish rot comes from D. confragosa, which is a white rotter. The photo also shows the demarcation lines between the territories of the mycelia of both species. To the bottom right of the center, by the "inbetween" colour, you can see how I. hispidus partially invaded the territory of D. confragosa, which means it has more aggressive self-produced fungicides at its disposal.

It is even more and faster detrimental to (the roots of) Q. rubra and fruiting on Q. robur together with Grifola frondosa (see photo) is alarming as it is an indication of the extreme danger of short term falling of the tree. And the second photo shows emergency reproduction of G. resinaceum at the base of a very old Q. robur with dual annual brackets of 65 x 30 and 40 x 20-25 centimetres.

David, From the looks of it, I also presume this is a (first or second) annual fruiting of G. resinaceum and the reason for not developing tubes could be, that the relatively young mycelium has not expanded enough to enable it to "consume" enough "energy" (sugar polymeres : cellulose) by decomposing wood to fruit properly. So this is not late phase emergency, but primal "poverty" reproduction.

David, As it could not have been spread by flies, which after eating the smelly green sporemass, left behind small faecal deposits elswhere, it's spores traveled to Europe in the wool of sheep imported from Australia.

Sean, Yes, it is associated with tree bark cancer caused by Nectria coccinea, when (at the same time) the (bark of the) tree is attacked by this scale insect.

No, I heard it from the horse's mouth, i.e. English Ph.d. mycologists, not from the (English) press and the "chickens" were collected from oak. Their seems to be a comparable phenomenon arising as with Tricholoma equestre and/or T. flavovirens, which were from the Middle Ages on, very popular species for consumption treated as an exclusive prerogative for the noble (Tricholoma's in Dutch and German still are called "Knight's mushrooms), but lead in 2000-2001 to the death of six people from France, who turned out to have a genetic predisposition for developing rhabdomyolyses, a disease which degenerates the heart muscle and causes it to stop functioning.

Did you collect and eat it ? If so, some years ago in England there has been a case of "poisening" of professional mycologists to the extent that admittance to a hospital was necessary reported, after eating chicken of the woods.

Tony, Because they look alike when looked upon (concentric "rings", green algae) and can have comparable elongated to lamelloid pores and/or tubes, T. gibbosa is often mixed up with L. betulina. And T. gibbosa is not associated with L. betulinus, like T. versicolor is. Besides, on beech you can often find both species of Trametes fruiting on the same saw cut surfaces. And did you overlook my identification of your whitish bracket fungus as Aurantioporus fissilis ?

To my knowledge, species of the genus mentioned are not associated with other fungi.

1. Attached a photo of T. suaveolens as it grows on old pollarded willows, of which we have a lot in The Netherlands. 2. Correct, on T. versicolor. And there is no connection with P. stipticus, in this case they just co-incide, without penetrating each others mycelial territories.

Xerxses, Whereabouts in Sweden ? And to answer your question, L. betulinus is a saprotrophic (simultaneous) white rotter, which hardly ever grows on the trunks of standing trees and has about the same effect on dead wood as the mycelium of Trametes versicolor has, the species it sometimes parasitizes on.

Tony, If you come to the eastern parts of The Netherlands (provinces Gelderland & Overijssel), I'll show you around on both sides of the Dutch-German border.

Depending on either dry or wet summers and the rain and/or wind conditions in August, September and October, the season starts end of August until the beginning of December - if not stopped by early night frost - with its peak in the second half of September and the entire month of October.

Tony, Come to The Netherlands then, where Pycnoporus cinnabarinus over the last 10 years has become quite common on thick branches and trunks with soil contact of Sorbus aucuparia, birches and beech.

Tony, 1. These are the exact characteristics of Aurantioporus fissilis. I left a piece of it outside for over a year and it still is hard as a rock and fibrous at the same time. 2. What well known encyclopaedia ? You mean the photo of L. betulinus, which clearly is Daedalea quercina, on page 532-533 in the book by Ewald Gerhardt ? 3. What isn't in my book : Trametes suaveolens or Lenzites betulinus ? I'll attach two recent, more representative photo's of L. betulinus form birch, both with Panellus stipticus underneath. 4. Trametes suaveolens only grows on willows (and sometimes on poplars) and has a distinct smell of aniseed if fresh and of iodine when dried.

David, I have partially answered your question in the discussion on the co-existence of Collybia fusipes and Fistulina hepatica on oak in : http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/fungi-pictures/28855-fistulina-hepatica.html, but to elaborate on that, in veteran Quercus robur, which is, together with Q. petrea and Castanea sativa, the only tree species, in/on which you can find both of them together, they often co-operate, both having their independend and fiercely defended territories, where F. hepatica almost always fruits in contact with the cambium after producing massive bark necrosis and L. sulphureus fruits from the decomposed brown rotted heartwood of the affected tree. Also see my Album : Fistulina hepatica.