WOOD ROTTING BRACKET FUNGI

A MATURE RED OAK ...

....WITH LARGE CONCENTRATIONS OF BRACKET FUNGI...

...ACTUALLY VERY BEAUTIFUL...

...BUT A SURE SIGN THE TREE IS ,OR WILL SOON BE, VERY DANGEROUS

Monday, 9:00 AM.  55 degrees F at the ferry dock, 51 on the back porch.  Wind S, light, with occasional gusts.  The sky is increasingly cloudy, the humidity 80%.  The barometer has started to fall, now at 30.13". Today's high should be in the mid-60's, warmer tomorrow, with clear skies; then chances of thunderstorms the balance of the week.
   While driving to church yesterday I spotted these large bracket fungi (also called shelf fungi and conks) on a red oak street tree.   I am sure their emergence is quite recent, or I would have noticed them before.
   There are many different species of shelf fungi that attack living trees and consume the heartwood, and I won't try to be more specific.  The fungal mycelia feed on the woody tissues, the fruiting bodies appearing only periodically to produce spores to infect other host trees.
   Once infected there is little to be done to stop the fungus, as there is no known control, and removing the mushrooms will not help the tree.  The primary prevention is to protect the tree from wounds to the bark, as that is how spores gain access to the tree's heartwood.  Lawnmower and weed eater damage  to the trunk must be avoided, and pruning done properly to assure quick wound repair (oaks should not be pruned in the spring, as that increases the risk of infection by oak wilt). 
   Raising the earthen grade around any tree more than an inch or two will increase the risk of rotting the bark and subsequent fungal infection, and red oaks are in my experience very susceptible to this risk.
   It is always difficult to predict when a tree will be so weakened by wood rot that it will fall or break in a windstorm, but this tree is, or will soon become, very dangerous.
   Bracket fungi are as far as I know are all edible, but I don't find them very appetizing.

Dying Tree

© Rebecca D. Gustavson

An old tree is compared to an old man.

I am an old man and I am dying.
I sit as if I've been forgotten.
I call out to the mountains, but they do not answer.
It is silent; you can hear the crack of my bones.
The bright sun breaks and murders my branches leaving me bare.
It has been hundreds of years since I've been looked at.
I try to grow, but I'm drowned by the sun and my efforts are useless.
I have cuts on my side, and my arms are separated.
Campers come and cut me, chopping my heart apart.
Birds avoid me as if I'm poison.
The young green ones around me laugh and play all day.
I am there, but to them, I am invisible.
I am free, but I cannot move.
I scream, I shout, I reach to the stars, but still,
No one notices.
I am an old man and I am dying.