Fungus

It would for me, although I would prefer a less invasive and damaging, but far more/too expensive method.

Tobias & David, IME freezing and defrosting kantarell and tratt kantarell makes them very slimy , so just as our Swedish friends, I like to make chutney of them or long term preserve them by drying in a circular vegetable drying apparatus we bought in Sweden and also use for drying thin slices of Karl Johan (Boletus edulis). By the way, Tobias. Where are you stationed in Sweden ?

Tony, To be sure about the extent of dead wood decomposed inside the tree at and/or below ground level and the risk of windthrow, I would either use a Picus tomograph or a resistograph to assess the remaining quality and strength of the central wood of the trunk compared to the intact outer shell. I have three times seen a healthy, vital and stable looking ash been windthrown after an infection with the mycelium of P. fraxinea with panic fruiting and/or well developed perennial brackets.

1. IMO weeping willows are not very well suited for pollarding to the extent you describe, because they tend to (re)develop hanging down and overextended lever arms, that will again be at risk of tear-out failures, which is not acceptable in an urban environment. So to preserve these trees, I would choose for the before documented Dutch way of pollarding. 2. From a forest ecological perspective, pollarding is not an alternative, because nature doesn't "create" neatly pollarded trees itself. From an urban arboricultural perspective, preserving old willows by pollarding creates habitats for other organisms, which is contributing to the biodiversity of the urban environment .

Adding some other information. A gram of biomass taken from the first 6 centimetres of soil beneath the forest floor contains 40 to 100 metres of fungal hyphae. A surface area of one square metre of forest soil contains 100 square metres of hyphae or mycelia. When stretched out, the in a surface area of 2.5 square metres of forest soil incorporated hyphae add up to a total length of 40.000 kilometres, which is about the circumference of the earth.

David, You're referring to early research on the subject of ectendomycorrhizal associations of fungi with trees. Thus far only a few macrofungi (ascomycetes), such as Wilcoxina mikolae, W. rehmii and Sphaerosporella brunnea, have been identified and documented to have this type of opportunistic "transitional" mycorrhizae. All species found are pioneer symbionts associating with young (seedlings) and/or regenerating trees growing in nurseries and on - especially after forest fires - extremely disturbed soils, of which natural reforestation is following tree species specific successive cycles (see : macrofungi forest fire), with another ascomycete, Geopyxis carbonaria, as an ectomycorrhizal pioneer associating with seedlings of coniferous trees. It has been speculated, that the ascomycete ectendomycorrhizal species of macrofungi are a remnant ("fossil") of the evolution of the ectomycorrhizal macrofungi from the endomycorrhizal microfungi, specializing in associating with young trees, which have to deal with extreme circumstances, just as Paxillus involutus, Scleroderma citrinum, Thelephora terrestris and some Tomentella species evolved from saprotrophic species to ectomycorrhizal symbionts without loosing their ability to temporarely live on/from dead wood. Recently some other species of ascomycetes, such as Humaria (= Mycolachnea) haemisphaerica, Tricharina gilva and Cenococcum geophilum (Fungi Imperfecti), have been identified as ectomycorrhizal symbionts too.

In The Netherlands, because of nitrification and the associated loss of tree species specific ectomycorrhizal symbionts, caterpillars (OPM) and successive oak leave mould on the secondary formed leaves, Q. robur has stopped having mast years some time ago. The only prolific fruiting of Q. robur of today is panic fruiting with 70 % sterile acorns.

And this is how this worked out for a weeping willow, which lost a major part of its crown (top left in the first photo) during last week's storm in a park close to my house, leaving a tree behind, which will be loosing more of its crown in a next storm if it is not pollarded properly this time. In the vicinity of this tree were two more cases of about the same damage done to other weeping willows during the same storm. ---

David, Yes, it is : vermutlich = supposed, presumed or probable.

And that's how British differs from Dutch humour , because I - of course - was only joking, so no offence taken .

1. With the notion, that plants and trees can perceive things and even communicate about what they perceive with plants and other organisms (ectomycorrhizal macrofungi, ants), which doesn't necessarily mean they also can feel things, a characteristic confined to animals with a nervous system such as fish, dogs and humans, in the past evolving in that order. 2. ... who is not a sentient fungus, but a Dutch mushroom hunter called Gerrit with strong human emotions when it comes to the fungal and tree territory .

I can agree on that, but I meant the subject to be pain and stress inflicting on fish as an outdoor "sport".

It must (again) be your typical British humour, that I fail to understand without lots of added to it. But all joking apart, what are your thoughts on the subject then ?

Graham, No, Armillaria (Latin : armilla) means with a ring or annulus, and mellea (Greek : meli) means (with the colour of) honey, from which Honey Fungus is derived.

Gollum, Hard to say from a picture alone and without description, it could f.i. also be Abortiporus biennis, which (also) is a (biotrophic) root parasite. Did it guttate with red droplets ?

Gollum & Sloth, : Coprinus picaceus (pica = magpie).

1. See the short list of with endo- and/or ectomycorrhizae associated tree species and endo- and ectomycorrhizae. 2. By microscopical identification of spores and characteristics of species specific (reproductive) tissues (hyphae), by genetical fingerprinting and by interspecies incompatibility experiments with interacting hyphae.

... dogfish are not dogs, dogs are not human, humans don't experience pain and stress like dogs and fish do, etc. : so what's your point ? Fish don't experience pain and extreme stress when hooked and handheld out of the water for a while ? I think you miss the point in the analogy the man tried to demonstrate or you are defending anglers ignoring facts for obvious reasons.

Sloth, No, it's the other way around : all ectomycorrhizae are formed by the mycelia of macrofungi and all endomycorrhizae by the mycelia of microfungi. And the difference between macro- and microfungi is, that macrofungi (basidiomycetes, ascomycetes) can and almost always will reproduce sexually in/on teleomorphs with basidia or asci, with the exception of some macrofungi also capable of fruiting with anamorphs, and microfungi only reproduce asexually by "splitting off" spores from the hyphae of their mycelia.

David, Where and written by whom did you read that ?

What about the outdoor "sport" of angling with fishing rods and baited hooks then ? Dutch research has shown, that a hooked fish experiences pain and extreme stress - fish have a nervous system - sometimes even leading to health problems after the fish is thrown back into the water. To publically demonstrate the issue, a Dutchman had a stick with cord and hook, a bent nail, "baited" with a piece of sausage, dangling from his first floor window to "catch" dogs with. He was arrested, sepoenaed and sentenced to paying a fine of 100 guilders.

Boletus edulis is edible, just as Boletus erythropus is, which does not have a white net at the top of the stipe.

David, In the optimal phase of the life cycle of f.i. an oak, several ectomycorrhizal macrofungi can fruit from the roots of one tree, each having their own territory on parts of its root system. There can even be more then one species living on the same root. I've seen random combinations of Boletus edulis, B. erythropus, Chalciporus piperatus, Xerocomus badius, X. chrysenteron s.l. and Leccinum quercinum along with several Russula and Lactarius species fruiting from the roots of one old solitary oak at the same time, which shows, that one tree can have the benefits of the supply of water and nutrients from 10 to 20 ectomycorrhizal symbionts attached to its roots in a specific period of its life.

Graham, Correct, and in German Honey Fungus (Armillaria) is Hallimasch, which was derived from "Heil im Arsch", meaning "benificial for one's arse", because of the laxative effect after consuming them.

Both times right , if you change the name of the last one in Vascellum pratense.