Found things; Birch Polypore in the January woodlands
Birch Polypore Funji
Irish Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Your may think the during the still month on January the woodlands are died and that nothing is growing, yet a closer look will bring you some well deserved surprises.
January for the woodland fungi is a perfect month, the winter rain and relative warmth of the trees bring perfect growing conditions, these Birch Polypore were growing in a woodland at the foot of Brandon hill, County kilkenny.
Birch Polypore
Description
The fruiting bodies (basidiocarps) are pale, with a smooth greyish-brown top surface, with the underside a creamy white and with hundreds of pores that contain the spores. The fruiting body has a rubbery texture, becoming corky with age. Wood decayed by the fungus, and cultures of its mycelium, often smell distinctly of green apples. The spores are cylindrical to ellipsoid in shape, and measure 3โ6 by 1.5โ2 ฮผm.
P. betulinus has a bipolar mating system where monokaryons or germinating spores can only mate and form a fertile dikaryon with an individual that possesses a different mating-type factor. There are at least 33 different mating-type factors within the British population of this fungus. These factors are all variants or alleles of a single gene, as opposed to the tetrapolar mating system of some other basidiomycete species, which involves two genes.
Range and ecology
The geographic distribution of Piptoporus betulinus appears to be restricted to the Northern Hemisphere. There is some doubt about the ability of isolates from the European continent, North America and the British Isles to interbreed.
It is a necrotrophic parasite on weakened birches, and will cause brown rot and eventually death, being one of the most common fungi visible on dead birches. It is likely that the birch bracket fungus becomes established in small wounds and broken branches and may lie dormant for years, compartmentalised into a small area by the tree’s own defence mechanisms, until something occurs to weaken the tree. Fire, drought and suppression by other trees are common causes of such stress.
In most infections there is only one fungal individual present, but occasionally several individuals may be isolated from a single tree, and in these cases it is possible that the birch bracket fungus entered after something else killed the tree. These fungal “individuals” can sometimes be seen if a slice of brown-rotted birch wood is incubated in a plastic bag for several days. This allows the white mycelium of the fungus to grow out of the surface of the wood. If more than one individual dikaryon is present, lines of intraspecific antagonism form as the two individual mycelia interact and repel each other.
The fungus can harbor a large number of species of insects that depend on it for food and as breeding sites. In a large-scale study of over 2600 fruit bodies collected in eastern Canada, 257 species of arthropods, including 172 insects and 59 mites, were found. The fungus is eaten by the caterpillars of the fungus moth Nemaxera betulinella.
Gallery
Very informative post, and as always…wonderful shots!
January 2, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Hello Nanette ๐
Thank you , very pleased that you found it so and ๐ ๐
January 3, 2014 at 7:29 pm
Causes me to wonder what’s so different between Ireland and France that you can’t grow truffles …? ๐
January 2, 2014 at 5:33 pm
Hello Margaret ๐
That’s a very interesting thought ๐
Thank you , you have me thinking ?
January 3, 2014 at 7:26 pm