#spalting

A BIRDS NEST FUNGUS

Growing out of the dead outer bark layer!

I've only seen these once before; an almost steely dark species growing on the ground near the chicken run. The irony of seeing a birds nest fungus *in a tree* is also pretty lovely.

The funnel-shape of the nest and the "eggs" inside are a part of its dispersal method. A raindrop falls into the cup, and splashes the spore packets up the sides and outwards.

Anyways, i kept looking at this tree, and saw something else cool. Among the incredible variety of colors from reds to greens to grays and everything in between, there are these black lines snaking through the bark fibers

Faint, almost hairlike. These are called Zone Lines and are the defensive barriers put up by fungi as they spread and need to defend their resources from other fungi. When it occurs in wood, it's known as spalting, and can be quite beautiful when carved.

This made me think of what i've heard about zone lines from folks while going on nature walks, and i remembered there's this area of wood that looks a lot like one i've heard discussed.

Basically, if you picture a log, with different fungi growing on it, you end up with a 3D matrix of zone borders all intersecting in unique patterns. Some fungi burn out quickly, eating into the wood and turning it into spores and dirt and crumble away; all the while there are other fungi that are secluded in their whimsical 3D shapes long past the decay of the other fungi.

What do these look like? Something like this:

three dimensional zone lines! A dark black/brown matte surface keeping the fungus defended as it chugs along slowly, breaking down its territory staked out long ago

Breaking open the wood shows this border/digestion area distinction:

I've got no idea how long this particular variety takes to decay. I've seen this wood here for years just like other rotting logs, but it was only about a year ago that i learned what makes it look the way it did!

Something that *was* new to me was this, though:

I saw this strange pattern of speckles, almost bubbly, scaly looking patches underneath the barrier. I havent seen this before, nor do i know what it is. Maybe it's the fruiting body of this particular fungus. Maybe it's a defensive wall put up against some foreign invader. Maybe it's a holdover from something in the life of the tree that the fungus simply grew over.

Whatever it is, it's quite fascinating.

This all made me go look for other cool decomposition patterns. I came across this whiterot oak branch that had fallen. Rotted oak like this is great for giving to rolly pollies as a snack, especially when very crumbly. But this time i was interested in the almost imperceptible hairs snaking through it as well:

it hides quite well in this branch, especially because the walls like to form in alignment with the wood's natural grain. But running through the center from top to bottom there *is* a zone line.

it's slightly more visible from the top, where you can also see the slight color difference between the two zones thanks to the different chemical compositions/byproducts of the competing fungi

It really is just so cool. wars raged beneath our feet in branches we may throw aside or even burn.

Here's an old post oak stump; for a few years it's been here and we used to use it as a surface for splitting firewood. now large channels have rotted away and the surface has taken on that dark fungal look.

this final pic is down one of the channels that's decayed into the tree. It appears that all the elements of water, bugs, fungus, *decay* have all hollowed out a matrix that follows along down into the tree roots themselves.

It's a lot deeper than the ground surface. I've seen chipmunks go in and out of it as well. I can only imagine there's a whole luxury burrow complex down there.

I am by no means experienced in woodworking but one of my best friends in Seattle has taught me a little, and thus it's a dormant interest of ours. My friend is now unable to work on much (partly age and infirmity, partly from being forced to move out of roomier housing and into much smaller quarters that permit no significant workspace) and I'm not set up to do much for…well, bad reasons mostly. There's space, there's some heavy shop equipment on hand, but neither the Pnictogen Wing nor our household has had the energy or discipline to make use of the space or equipment. Entropy has a strong hold on our basement.

That having been said: let me relate a woodworking idea that I've just had. It might not be so difficult to try out, though it would be a rather lengthy experiment.

First, let me speak of spalted wood. This is a prized decorative variety of certain hardwoods (mostly light-colored woods such as maple or birch) which have started to become colonized with fungi, and thus developed thin dark stripes in intricate patterns throughout the otherwise unaltered wood (see image). One can create one's own spalted wood, though it's rather a chancy process, by incubating pristine boards of maple or other host wood with fungal spores, such as you might obtain by collecting bracket fungi or wood that's clearly infected with some fungal rot. Periodically you check to see how well the fungi have taken root and whether they've formed attractive patterns of spalting, and then you clean the wood off and bake the wood out to kill off the fungal infection. You might go as far as stabilizing the wood with resin, to make it more reliably workable. Fungal infection of wood starts to soften it, and if the infestation is too far advances the wood becomes too weak and "punky" to be usefully worked.

I think spalted wood is beautiful stuff, especially when it's turned on a lathe or cleverly carved to bring out the spalting patterns. And now suddenly I wonder: could you apply negative space to the spalting of wood, to create interesting designs? Suppose for example that you applied a wood preservative, salicylic acid let's say or zinc salts, selectively to a maple board. You could stencil on letters or shapes, for instance. Then you treat the board with fungal spores to induce spotting. Wouldn't the spalting tend to form around the treated areas?