Fungus

Hi Pete, Nice interior photo's . 1. If this is true, one of my Dutch collegues, who named S. himantioides the Dakloze huiszwam ® will not be pleased, so for his sake and peace of mind, I hope you misidentified the . 2. That's also the case in The Netherlands, my photo shows a rare exception of fruiting on the lower side of a window. In Dutch it's called the "Werkhoutzwam", which means the processed wood fungus.

Yes, plenty of fodder, but if it is G. australe (and not the necrotrofic parasitic G. lipsiense), the fact that G. australe is a biotrophic parasitic perennial bracket fungus would explain for the deformation of the last formed (panic fruiting) brackets, because the mycelium is not capable of decomposing dead wood once the part of the tree it is fruiting from has died.

Pete, I have posted my comments under Brown and white rot in processed wood.

Pete Bannister's post Pete, IME finding FB's of Serpula lacrymans in forests or woodlands would be improbable, because as far as I have witnessed fruitings outside buildings, it has been on processed wood like on boards used for making a balcony flower box (first photo). Inside fruiting mostly takes place in old poorly isolated buildings (photo 2), or in more recently built over-isolated and insufficiently ventilated (cellars of) houses. If FB's of a dry rot causing Serpula species are found on non-processed coniferous wood in forests, IME it always is S. himantioides, which in Dutch is called the "Dakloze huiszwam", meaning homeless house fungus (photo 3), which this far has never been found fruiting inside a building. Inside and outside buildings and especially in cellars, we often have a moist brown rot causing Coniophora species, mostly C. arida (photo 4), the species you also mention. On benches in parks one can sometimes find Gloeophyllum sepiarium (photo 5) and on wooden fences G. abietinum (photo 6). And then there are the white rot in processed wood causing species, like the very common Dacrymyces stillatus or Trametes versicolor and the rare Phellinus contiguus (photo 7). A story from my own practice. I once was called in on an insurance case after a printing press had overnight broke through the floorboards and dropped two metres down on the basement floor. Two mayor beams had been dry rotted completely by S. lacrymans, which had been fruiting so prolificely, that the shelves of a cupboard were covered with an one millimetre thick layer of spores looking like someone had emptied a tin of cinnamon. There also was a cupboard with classic lp's nearby, in which white rhizomorph strains had consumed the cellulose of the covers of the records and had "glued" them together, so that the owner could only take out the records and not remove the covers anymore.

I like the remnants left behind by trees themselves such as this "spinal cord" of a spruce. ---

Beech embrasing cornerstone of the entrence gate of a park.

Simon, Just as I always said sorry before I trampled upon the grass and extensively apologized before I took the lawn mower and grass cutter out, when I still had a lawn to mow behind my house , which I rearranged with ponds and wild plants, bushes and trees, because of guilty feelings over my earlier actions.

Guy, Some final answers, because I think we've milked the cow dry by now, which I think is a typical Dutch expression. 1. It's not, only in this exceptional situation, otherwise we also have a lot of damage done to superficial roots, buttresses (this time right, right ? ) and trunk bases of urban trees by lawn and verge mowers. 2. I hoped, I had earned a bit of credit on the subject by now .

And "dollen", "de gek steken" or "de spot drijven" met ... (mocking bird = spotvogel) ? Funny how a single word in one language has so many words in another language, that mean about the same.

David, Would be exceptional, but throughout possible, as Carpinus is associated with ectomycorrhizal macrofungi too and in part shares some of the beech specific symbionts. Did you also find the tree species specific Lactarius circellatus and/or Leccinum griseum ?

Tom, Don't despair , there's still hope . See you in Meerssen soon .

Robin, Nice salt water find, great pictures . At the bottom of Dutch rivers, well preserved oak beams were found, which used to be part of Roman bridges. They were backdated dendrochronologically to 200-300 years before the Romans felled them. All over Europe, the Romans cut old oaks to build bridges, villa's and ships from the wood. They also felled the sacred oaks of the local tribes to demonstrate their ruling power and control. Once they withdrew from the northwestern European territory, there was no original genetic material of Quercus robur (and Q. petrea) left, so all of our present "indigenous" oaks originate from Turkey or Spain. In peets and marshes in the eastern parts of The Netherlands, some remnants of old forests have been found, which have to be prepared to preserve them once they are exposed to oxygen.

David, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but making this up doesn't make this (sound) right. Mothers and daughters having PMS at about the same time because of synchronisation of their ovulation cycles results in making us men "suffer" as little and for the shortest time (as) possibe, as women - luckely for us - don't have conscious control over it. When Lucy walked the plains of Africa gathering food and lived in her cave with other female family members while the men were out hunting, it is hypothesized this synchronization took place, because the women thus would be pregnant and give birth at the same time, so they could share nursing (breast feeding) their babies, while some of the women still could leave the cave for a while.

Geoff, In my early days in the mycological field, our prof, during the lunch brake on a field trip, once was eating his sandwiches amidst some 20 "ripe" Phallus impudicus , while everybody moved away from him as far as possible. It turned out he from childhood on had a nasal disorder with total lack of smell as a consequence and that's when we found out, that he had lead us up the garden path, when he asked us what the smell (and taste) of a fungus was to identify a species, because he had never smelled it himself and only knew this information from books .

How about "spotten" or "de draak steken" met ?

Matt, 1. An Agaricus species. Smell of aniseed ? Turning yellow or reddish when bruised ? 2. Smell ? Could be a Melenoleuca species, such as M. excissa, or a Lepista, such as L. irina (sweet aromatic smell of perfume). Last photo : heavy breathing brown white haired Caninus species.

... which in English would be "teasing" as opposed to "pestering", "ragging" or "harassing", which is quite a bit nastier.

Mark, Killing old trees is not that much different from baby trees, as old trees still have living embryonic tissue.

Daniel, Even in the country, we share as our common birth ground, where a sister of the queen is talking to and hugging trees, there is a difference between joking, ridiculing and mocking . If I was ridiculing or mocking, would I have been so serious about the communication of plants or trees in my following posts ?

Yes, they both are (the same) orchids, but your first pictures are of an Orobanche species.

Gollum, No, because this is an orchid and the other one is a leafless parasitic broomrape.

Feromones travel over long distance by wind, so in this case, only trees will profit if they're downwind from the attacked trees. Humans (and wild boars or domesticated pigs) have a small organ up their nose, called the vomero nasal organ, which registers feromones secreted by both sexes without us becoming consciously aware of the effect it has on our hormonal system, brain and behaviour. Women in their fertile years regularely sharing the same rooms (mother-daughters, same sex partners, nuns), synchronize their ovulation. A room filled with copuline, a female sex hormone, makes heterosexual men so horny, that they don't care anymore what the "targetted" woman looks like, they just want to .... And women can 98 % correct smell whether sweaty t-shirts were worn by women or men by sniffing the armpits, while men only can do this with 95 % accuracy.

= Coprinus micaceus s.l.

Scott, If so, it would need Picris hieracioides or Hypochaeris radicata to parasitize on.

Harmony , Believe ? As a matter of fact they do, plants are able of communication through feromones within the same species and trees with insects and hyphae of mycelia of ectomycorrhizal macrofungi, as a wolf in sheep's clothing mimicked by a parasitic Armillaria species. See : Communication of plants.