09 Monday Sep 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, fungi, nature, trees
While sneaking up on a juvenile Green woodpecker at Cosmeston, I spotted these lovely examples of Alder tongue (Taphrina alni).
I’ve covered these intriguing galls in a previous blog post so, just briefly, they’re the result of a fungus that chemically alters its host. One of Nature’s oddities!
30 Friday Dec 2016
Though fungi frequently defy the rules we humans assign to them, the Alder bracket (Inonotus radiatus) does, amazingly, almost always (note the qualifier) grow on alder trees. Sadly, its presence usually means the tree is on its last legs and the fungus itself contributes to the tree’s death by assisting white rot to form within the tree.
Yet, Alder bracket can be rather beautiful, especially when young, as it produces quite striking orangey-red globules of liquid which sparkle in the sunshine. As it matures, it develops from pale-coloured well-rounded velvet-textured fruiting bodies into the more regular shelf-like shape you would expect from a bracket fungus, and the pores on its underside become more apparent.
As it reaches old age, the bracket become rougher and tougher, the spots which once produced those gorgeous droplets develop into ugly pits, and its delicate apricot-coloured upper surface dulls to a brown so dark it looks black.
04 Tuesday Oct 2016
Tags
Alder, Alder tongue, Alnus glutinosa, fungal gall, fungus, galls on alder cones, Taphrina amentorum, Taphrini alni
If you’re out walking through parks and woodlands this month, keep an eye out for these strange-looking growths on the cones of Alder trees (Alnus glutinosa). They’re caused by the fungus Taphrina alni (also known as Taphrina amentorum), common name Alder tongue, a plant pathogen that uses chemicals to persuade the trees to produce these weird and wonderful tongue-shaped galls.
Though common in Western Europe, Alder tongue only appeared in Britain in the 1940s but has now become quite common throughout the isles as spores produced by the ‘tongues’ are easily carried on the wind to other trees. Sometimes the Alder cones have just one tongue, sometimes they have several, usually all emerging from the same spot on the cone and often curling into intriguing shapes (spot the dragons in the images below!). The tongues start off green in colour but then vary from yellow and orange to pink and red (which really would look very tongue-like) before becoming brown and black as they age. They can, in fact, be seen on Alder trees throughout the year, though, for some reason, I’m seeing more of them now, in the autumn months.
