Just ran across this in the garden at work today. Is it a bad thing?
Is this bad?
it looks like a very fancy fungus.
LOL"fancy fungus" i like that...it's very pretty!
Jmc, it looks a lot like a sulphur fungus or turkey tail fungus. Is that a tree stump the fungus is attached to?If it is I wouldn't worry about it.
However you don't want to see it growing on live trees. If they're growing on live trees they can be parasitic. Often our live trees that are diseased or distressed (like last years drought) will fall prey to sulphur fungus.
here are some more fancy fungus photos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_fungus
This message was edited Nov 2, 2007 6:23 PM
Cool. I'm glad I am not the only person that thought it looked cool. It is growing on an old stump that was cut pretty close to ground level.
There aren't any trees in the area, so I think I will leave it alone.
Not a sulphur fungus; too bad because they taste pretty good. Not the turkey tail either, although closely related. It is on of the very common wood rotting basidiomycetes, I can't tell which one; it would be helpful to know what kind of tree the stump used to be. Your local county agent may know, or woud be able to find out. Some of these critters can be pathogens, certainly, but most of them live on non-living wood, even if you see them growing from a live tree. In that case, they will be growing on the non-living interior wood and can result in hollow pockets in the tree. The extreme example of this is a hollow tree. The tree really doesn't mind if its non-living inner core rots away, because it can keep on flowering and producing seed. Of course, the tree is then much more susceptible to being blown over during a wind. Some of these sorts do have the ability to attack living tissue and those would be considered pathogens. Some of these are serious pathogens. I better stop now, or I'll end up writing a book.
Cla, I'm always happy when you pop in the give us the correct information. Makes it a lot more interesting from someone who is an expert. No intent to put you down, Lynnea. I wouldn't even be able to give a guess. Everything to me is a mushroom.
Like I have red flowers, white flowers, etc., etc.
Hmmm. Would you recommend that I remove it and treat the stump? Just to be on the safe side? Would not want anything else in the area to suffer.
Oh Cla, thanks very good to know. Want to see something really cool? I have one of those extreme examples on our property. It's a 60 foot tree, totally hollow, with a large opening at the base. We call it the Winnie the Pooh Tree. I'll try to get a photo in the morning. I know it's going to come down soon.
LouC, your not putting me down, it's not in you : 0) I prefer the experts myself, sometimes they never show up tho.
Jmc, sry to jump on your thread. I'm not suggestiong this is what you have. It's just a nature thang at it's finest and too cool not to show.This tree is still alive.
It was hard to get a shot of the entire "hollow", but the tree looks like it's being held up by bark alone. This is a shot of the base and there are more holes that continue up the trunk to the canopy.
Hollow trees are picturesque, no doubt about that. They can also be very, very dangerous. I/ve made a good bit of money as an expert witness when people have been injured by what are called "hazard trees." This, and the next picture, demonstrate that. A colleague of mine had a tree with "heart rot" which caused the strong, inner column of non-living structural wood to decay. One morning, about 3:00 am, this tree fell over on his house. His 12 yr. old son was asleep in bed, but the tree cracked first, and fell over relatively slowly. The noise of the crack, or some noise by the tree, caused his son to sit up in bed because he thought his big sister had come into his room to bug him. When he sat up, a limb from the tree came through the roof and stabbed down where his head had been. The first photo is of the tree; the second photo is of a very narrow escape. I used the photos in my Forest Pathology class to demonstrate the dangers of hollow trees.
Photo two.
That is scary! I'm so glad the boy is o.k. Thank you for the warning.
Ours is not near the house and no one is allowed in the area, it is coming down soon. It's close enough that i've watched it during storms, hoping I might be be able to watch it fall on its own. It's probably worth mentioning, I took the photo and ran. lol
We have had 3 mature trees taken down just this last month. Broke my heart and now my area is mostly sun instead of mostly shade. However, they were mostly dead. 40 year old fruitless mulberrys that had lived way past their time. Took them down because I didn't want a hole in the roof during a rain storm.
LouC
