Greetings - I landed in this forum because I found a growth on one of our ancient oak tress. It may be a fungus - hence my interest in your discussion. My item does not look like any referenced here. Mine is reddish in color and looks and feels like flesh. I am going to attach three images. In the images there is a circular white object in the foreground. Ignore that it is a shrub that I sawed to get better access to the find. Have a look and if it rings a bell with anyone please let me know. Tony Reynolds
Re: fungus on exposed oak tree roots I'm hoping we can narrow this down to a broad group of fungi: Can see a spore-bearing surface on this? As in, a surface that has pores, gills, tubes, teeth ... usually (but not always) an underside surface that appears different from the top surface. If you can see no such surface difference (with the naked eye), that would be helpful info too, as it will also eliminate some possibilities. Also, is it growing out of the oakwood, or near the oak in the soil? For size reference, is that a sleeve? cheers, frog
Re: fungus on exposed oak tree roots Hello Frog, Thank you so much for the quick response. Some additional information I learned today. The tree is a White Oak. I have not inspected the underside of the growth. I will do that tomorrow morning. I will also verify if it is growing out of the tree or the soil at the point where the soil and tree meet. I went over to the University of Virginia Experimental Farm - Blandy - which is close to me. The two gentlemen that I showed the photos to did not recognize the growth either. I think part of my problem is not having the botanical knowledge to gather the proper information. I will get more. My camera has a macro lens feature that I will try to figure out. Tony Reynolds
Re: fungus on exposed oak tree roots Hello Frog, It has pores and tubes. size is about equal to a large grapefruit. The human object in the image is my wife's hand holding part of it for the shot. Tony Reynolds
Re: fungus on exposed oak tree roots So, if it has tubes on the underside, a sort of separable spongy layer on the underside of the cap, that puts it in the Bolete group. Sometimes mushrooms grow in a distorted form, sometimes due to obstacles they run into as they grow upwards, but not always ... so the fact that it does not match the tidy cap & stem shape does not necessarily mean that it's not a bolete. If it is pores rather than tubes, as in, holes in the surface that are not in a separable spongy layer (usually firm but not always), then that is more likely a polypore. frog
