Neighbours talking over the garden gate has long been a tradition. They share gardening tips, complain about the weather and pests yet are ever eager to discuss their gardens. That is what I had in mind when creating this blog. So stop by my garden gate to find out the latest happenings in my garden.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Gnome
"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child." ~ Madame Marie Curie"

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

There's A Fungus Amongst Us

We have a nice little tree on the waterfront. Then I noticed shelf fungus so of course was very interested. Shelf fungus is of the class Basidiomycetes. I haven't indentified the fungus but suffice to say the tree is still living so either this is a symbiotic fungus or parasitic.


Fungus

The shelf fungus is rather impressive. Once identified, I will know whether it is edible or not. For the time being we are keeping an eye on the tree to see how it reacts. We have thought of removing the fungsu but so far there are no apparent ill effects in the tree. The tree itself looks nice and healthy which leads me to think this fungus might be a symbiotic one! So it might be best left alone.

Fungus from the Top

The fungus has a dark centre from whence it is growing. The rest is rather bland looking. The underside where the spores are is fine pored with no visible spores.

I'll keep an eye and document this fungus. There is less to do in the garden as the weather cools but since we had to put the heat on today that will soon change. Once the first frost threatens, less than a month now, I will be busy picking whatever green tomatoes I can. The beans are pretty much finished. We've decided that because of blight problems this year all foliage will be burned not composted. Then the work of preparing the beds for winter will begin.

Happy Gardening

Garden Gnome


Posted by Garden Gnome at 5:20 PM

2 comments:

  1. Ernest12:47 PM

    Can't tell from the photo, but it might be Dryad's Saddle. That'd be a good place to start in your search of polypores. A lot of the shelf fungi are edible but most taste kind of awful. They 'eat' cellulose and lignin, so they're not exactly beneficial to trees, but they often have a beneficial side effect. When a tree is sick or dying the fungus will spread and remove some of the dead lignin, thus reducing the extra weight on the plant without damaging the load-bearing structure. That's why you often find rotted out trees that stand storms better than their healthy counterparts ... a lot of the weight is gone.

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  2. Garden Gnome11:54 AM

    Thanks Ernest! I do a little research. It is getting a bit of attention from the neighbours :)

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