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Tree under attack (1 Viewer)

psilo

psilo

Well-known member
Whilst out walking yesterday I found this dead tree on the edge of a coniferous/deciduous mixed wood. To say it was covered in fungi is an understatement. The paler brown one I think might be a species of Armillaria but unlike the other species I posted it does not have any freckles on it. I think there might be 4 different species here altogether, the pale brown one, the large frilly one,the larger grey one and the small grey one. See what you think?
 

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psilo said:
Whilst out walking yesterday I found this dead tree on the edge of a coniferous/deciduous mixed wood. To say it was covered in fungi is an understatement. The paler brown one I think might be a species of Armillaria but unlike the other species I posted it does not have any freckles on it. I think there might be 4 different species here altogether, the pale brown one, the large frilly one,the larger grey one and the small grey one. See what you think?
Click to expand...

and the rest
 

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the fungi in photo I was too high up for me to see the cap colour properly but I think this may just be a more mature form of the pale brown one but I cant see the stem structure on photo 1.
Quite a few of the fungi are covered in old and new wood shavings as a woodpecker was setting up residence in the tree too.
 
Forgot to mention that there were also alot of dead mens fingers coming out of the base so this could well be a beech tree. There were some in the area.
 
psilo said:
Whilst out walking yesterday I found this dead tree on the edge of a coniferous/deciduous mixed wood. To say it was covered in fungi is an understatement. The paler brown one I think might be a species of Armillaria but unlike the other species I posted it does not have any freckles on it. I think there might be 4 different species here altogether, the pale brown one, the large frilly one,the larger grey one and the small grey one. See what you think?
Click to expand...

They all look to be the same thing to me - Pleurotus ostreatus, the Oyster Mushroom. Beech is a regular host.

They can be a bit confusing, but Roger Phillips's 'Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe' has excellent photographs of this and its best known relatives.

People who eat fungi claim that this one is edible and good. However, if you decide to try it yourself, double check all characters with a good book and don't trust the word of anyone identifying it from photographs.

Also, while this variant is ok, I have seen doubts expressed about the edibility of its intensely blue var. columbrinus (which is said to be more common on willows).

Alan
 
Silver said:
They all look to be the same thing to me - Pleurotus ostreatus, the Oyster Mushroom. Beech is a regular host.

They can be a bit confusing, but Roger Phillips's 'Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe' has excellent photographs of this and its best known relatives.

People who eat fungi claim that this one is edible and good. However, if you decide to try it yourself, double check all characters with a good book and don't trust the word of anyone identifying it from photographs.

Also, while this variant is ok, I have seen doubts expressed about the edibility of its intensely blue var. columbrinus (which is said to be more common on willows).

Alan
Click to expand...

Many thanks Alan. Do you think that the larger grey ones are a different variation on the pale brown one or will the pale one turn grey later as it matures more?
 
Actually after looking at lots of different photos of Pleurotus ostreatus it seems that it has quite alot of different colour variations. I have seen this in many fungi. So my question is this. How do you recognise any species that you know as one colour when you see it as another? Many books only give a pretty much standard guide to their colour so how do you know when you have a slight variant? (sorry I hope that you understand what I mean?) also what causes variations in cap colours?
 
Psilo,

What an incredible tree to see, with all those fungi on it. I really like the photographs. On the colour issue, I see that my book on fungus has Pleurotus ostreatus as white-gilled with a grey/black cap, so understand what you mean about iding fungi when there are potentially many colour variations.
Sonia
 
yes sonia, this is the second tree that I have found like this in the last few weeks. These are very large fungi and the trees, which was about 15 feet high was smothered in them. This one was of particular interest because it had so many variations on it. A really spectacular thing to see.
 
psilo said:
Actually after looking at lots of different photos of Pleurotus ostreatus it seems that it has quite alot of different colour variations. I have seen this in many fungi. So my question is this. How do you recognise any species that you know as one colour when you see it as another? Many books only give a pretty much standard guide to their colour so how do you know when you have a slight variant? (sorry I hope that you understand what I mean?) also what causes variations in cap colours?
Click to expand...

You see why I described them as "a bit confusing"!

Yes, colour variation is tricky, when books don't mention it.

There was a Porcelain Fungus (Oudemansiella mucida) photo posted the other day, the nice, typical, white version, the only version that British books mention.
But it's also available in dark brown - quite a shock when one sees it!

Russulas are the worst, especially when popular guides (as one recently did) give no colour information at all and readers are left to assume that the species is always the colour in the picture, when many species can vary from yellow to red to purple or even green.
(Guide to mycologists by the way:
Beginner - cannot name most Russula species in the field
Advanced - confidently names many Russula species in the field
Real expert - knows most Russula species cannot be named reliably in the field!)

As for what causes the variation - genetics. :)

Alan
 
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