The Maples

Sugar Maple (acer saccharum)

Red Maple (acer rubrum)

Silver Maple (acer saccharinum)

Mountain Maple (acer spicatum)

Striped Maple (acer pensylvanicum)

Manitoba Maple, or Box Elder (acer negundo)

Professor: C. Ryan, Course: Dendrology

Yellow cap fungus on Sugar Maple

Yellow cap mushrooms look like yellow fairytale toadstools, and yes, they are up to no good! These sticky shrooms will take advantage of an already wounded tree, leaving yellow-brown, stringy rot in their wake. The yellow cap generally prefer maples and yellow birch. Add that to the list of parasites that love maples!

Yellow cap fungus, October 8th, 2011

Yellow cap fungus on Maple tapped for sugaring, October 8th, 2011

Defect: Yellow cap fungus (Pholiota spp.)

Defect importance: Major

Tree Species: Sugar Maple (acer saccharum)

Collected from: Baldwin Pond, Baldwin's Mills Quebec

Date Collected: October 8th, 2011

Professor: Erroll Downey, Course: Forest Health

Coal fungus on Sugar Maple

These crusty black fungi almost look like they were painted on! It's hard to imagine them being attached to internal rot causing hyphae 1-2.7 meters above the conk, but they are! Maples and beech are targeted by the coal fungus. 

Coal fungus, October 10th, 2011

Defect: Coal fungus (hypoxylon deustum)

Defect importance: Major

Tree Species: Sugar Maple (acer saccharum)

Collected from: Baldwin Pond, Baldwin's Mills Quebec

Date Collected: October 10th, 2011

Professor: Erroll Downey, Course: Forest Health

The Oaks

Two of the easiest leaves to collect in our scavenger-hunt style leaf collection assignment, both of these oaks are found in Pansy Patch Park. The two leaves are easy to differentiate; the red oak has pointy lobes where the bur oak has round lobes.

Bur Oak (quercus macrocarpa)

Red Oak (quercus rubra)

Professor: C. Ryan, Course: Dendrology

Clinker fungus on Yellow Birch

This hard, black plug looks like a big chunk of burnt charcoal. The internal rot caused by the clinker fungus can be 1.5-1.8 meters above and below the conk. Birches are the target of these odd fungi. The wikipedia entry indicates that this mushroom has long been used in folk medicine as a cure for a number of ailments. Would you try it?

Craig and the clinker fungus, October 9th, 2011

Defect: Clinker (cinder) fungus (inonotus obliquus)

Defect importance: Major

Tree Species: Yellow Birch (betula alleghaniensis)

Collected from: Baldwin Pond, Baldwin's Mills Quebec

Date Collected: October 9th, 2011

Professor: Erroll Downey, Course: Forest Health

Spine tooth fungus on Sugar Maple

Large, soft, smelly conks bloom from the cracks and seams of a sugar maple. The fruiting body of the spine tooth fungus is a delicate beauty; external evidence of a devastating internal rot caused by hyphae that can stretch up to 5 meters above and below the external fruit. Maples attacked by spine tooth will rapidly degrade, and should probably be removed.

Spine tooth fungus, October 4th, 2011

Defect: Spine Tooth fungus (climacodon septrionalis)

Defect importance: Major

Tree Species: Sugar Maple (acer saccharum)

Collected from: Shaw Woods

Date Collected: October 4th, 2011

Professor: Erroll Downey, Course: Forest Health