“I read once about a kind of fungus that grows in trees. The fungus begins to encroach on the systems that carry water and nutrients up from the roots to the branches. It disables them one by one―it crowds them out. Soon, the fungus―and only the fungus―is carrying the water, and the chemicals, and everything else the tree needs to survive. At the same time it is decaying the tree slowly from within, turning it minute by minute to rot.
That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.
It is hard and deep and angular, a system of blockades. It is everything and total.”
―Lauren Oliver
(Click any picture to open the gallery!)
We saw these shelf fungi (or bracket fungi) just a few yards past the mulberry tree we spotted earlier. These are the largest I have seen at this park and have overlays of bark on top of them. It appears they have been here for quite some time in the slow conquest of this tree’s essence.
A Trivial Mind At Work 
This comment is from an arborist standpoint, not a poetic one like the quote 😉
Many fungus in trees block the phloem system (think veins in humans) so nutrients and water can’t pass. Some fungus work faster than others. They can kill a tree in a season or take years.
Trees do have a system to deal with an injury or attack of pathogen called CODIT (Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees). The tree will block off the area of injury to prevent the spread of the disease. Sometimes it can’t be done, tho.
So the next part of the prose should be that humans may need to compartmentalize their problems a bit better and don’t let everything bother them, only the big problems.
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That is interesting. As a casual observer, that would lead me to conclude that trees are smarter than most of the people I know. In the setting of nature, that may be what is going on with our cherry tree. About a third of the tree has shut down but the rest of it produces very nicely.
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I think the lessons trees give are awesome 😉
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I didn’t know they do this to a tree. In my ex house I had one fixed to the wall with the flat side up so that it could carry a candle. I’m sure it didn’t drain the wall, or my relationship at the time. Or has it?
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I’m not sure about either the wall or the relationship! There are usually dozens of these on a tree that kill it over the years then live off the dead wood. It takes a while in that case!
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