Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fungus

After doing a bit of reading on fungus and oak trees, I discovered that the fungus may precipitate butt rot. My hypothesis may not be exactly correct because I am such a newbie discovering the life of trees, but I couldn't leave the lovely, shell-like parasite to weaken this incredibly tall, large, old, oak tree (the tree is not on my property--bank owned property?). Today I walked down the road, knife in back pocket, ready to rescue the mighty oak by severing the bond between parasite and host. Even if I incorrectly identified this fungus which is more peach than brown, layered like 1950'2 petticoat, I feel it must be malignant and not benign. I know it is not bracket fungus. So far, I've found it at the base of two local oaks after weeks of rain. The first one I found, crumbled after a week and it doesn't appear that the tree is any worse for wear; however there are a few limbs without leaves that won't sustain the weight of snow this winter.
So back to my rescue effort: I found the root of the fungus and cut it with my knife. Underneath there was a jelly-like substance and many beetles that were iridescent, like earwigs but not brown, rather blue/green and fast! I so hope they weren't the emerald borers --an import threat to ash.
I scraped as much fungus and beetle life as possible away from the tree.
I also found, on the bark of the tree, some clear spit that looked like an alien may have coughed up on the tree -- cellophane looking with blues and greens but transparent. Perhaps slugs, dominant due to this rain, have created these iridescent panes along the sides of the trees.

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