Fruiting bodies at root collar

In what seemed like going to be a series of entries on fruiting bodies appearing at the base of trees (previous entry), here is another occurrence! I neglected to mention earlier, but trees that are affected by ganoderma would show symptoms of weak aboveground parts (e.g., yellow and falling leaves, poor growth, etc). Having spotted fruiting bodies peeking out from the base of a palm, I would expect to see yellowing fronds, but...

Fruiting bodies appearing from the mass roots stubs at the trunk base.

 

The palm (Roystonea oleracea), which is situated in a park seemed healthy enough.

What a red herring. The fungi was probably using some organic matter trapped in the mass of root stubs as a substrate, without penetrating the palm trunk.

In our next case study, a tree, which was also situated in a park, was obviously not doing well, and had a fruiting body protruding from a wound (one feet long from ground up). Maybe the wound made the inoculation of the fungi easier as opposed to if there was no wound. It was decided to have the tree removed, as it posed a risk to the people passing by on the path right beside the tree.

 Not a red herring this time

 Cratoxylum formosum. You can notice the mushroom spanning across more than half the trunk girth.

The red arrow indicates the side of the trunk where the fruiting body appeared. It is noted that the ganoderma had broken down the heartwood. As a white-rot fungi, it had decayed the sapwood turning it white. Although more than half of the tree base had been ebbed away, research had found that significant strength loss (leading to tree failure) would occur in late stages of decay.