Armillaria spp.

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Armillaria spp.
Photo Information
Copyright: Adrian Szatewicz (aes_thor) Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 121 W: 23 N: 306] (1262)
Genre: Fungi
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2006-10-11
Categories: Fungi
Camera: Fuji Finepix S20 Pro, Fujinon 6x zoom
Exposure: f/2.8, 1/34 seconds
More Photo Info: [view]
Photo Version: Original Version
Theme(s): Mushrooms II [view contributor(s)]
Date Submitted: 2008-05-19 3:47
Viewed: 395
Favorites: 1 [view]
Points: 32
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
Photograph of young mushrooms from Armillaria family. Taken in forests near Mragowo.

Armillaria Root Disease is very dangerous and common spreaded forest disease.
Age of the host may influence the disease. With conifers, killing of young, vigorous trees is fairly common, especially in plantations. Older trees can tolerate infections much better and they survive much longer with infection. The older trees tend to get butt rot if they are infected.

Some information taken from Wikipedia:
Armillaria is a genus of parasitic fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs. It includes about 10 species formerly lumped together as A. mellea.

Armillaria is long lived and form some of the largest living organisms in the world. The largest single organism (of the species Armillaria ostoyae) covers more than 3.4 square miles (8.9 km²) and is thousands of years old. Some species of Armillaria are bioluminescent and may be responsible for the phenomena known as foxfire and perhaps will o' the wisp.

As a forest pathogen, Armillaria can be very destructive. It is responsible for the "white rot" root disease (see below) of forests and is distinguished from Tricholoma (mycorrhizal) by this parasitic nature. Its high destructiveness comes from the fact that, unlike most parasites, it doesn't need to moderate its growth in order to avoid killing its host, since it will continue to thrive on the dead material.

I always collect Armillaria during my autumn mushroom picking travels. They are very good, pan-fried with onion, salt, pepper and a little bit of cream.
Very beautifull but dangerous for forest ecology.

Thank You for Your comments and critiques.
gracious, extramundi, Jamesp, iris, LordPotty has marked this note useful
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Critiques [Translate]

Hello Adrian,

Excellent picture of these fungi. Perfect sharpness. Excellent POV and composition. Beautiful colours.
Cheers,
Mariki

Hallo Adrian
This is just great! The clarity, focus and sharpness are splendid, and the texture of this fungi is remarkable. I do not have much knowledge about fungi and because of that I prefer not to give my comments on these kinds of postings. I can however not let this beauty pass without adding my little comment for what it is worth. A well composed image with good and clear details. A splendid image indeed. Trek Nature is without a doubt a very interesting and most educational site. Not a day will pass that I don't see or learn something new or something remarkable. Thanks for sharing and enjoy your day.
Kind regards.
Anna

great pair, TFS Ori

Hi Adrian

That's a fantastic fungi shot. Exellent composition and the light is perfect, giving a very dramatic shot. The small DOF is ideal hear and the OOF background hightlight the fungi further.

Great work.
Chris

  • Great 
  • cloud Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 88 W: 54 N: 124] (1359)
  • [2008-05-19 5:02]

Witaj,
Podoba mi sie POV, swiatlo podkreslajace glebie.
Pozdrawiam, Pawel

  • Great 
  • pvs Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1133 W: 259 N: 2406] (10803)
  • [2008-05-19 6:11]

Hi Adrian,

A fine capture with great light,the focus is spot on and the narrow dof looks great,well done and tfs

Paul

Hello Adrian,
Great captured on these beautiful species of mushrooms with a good pov in depth!
the image is sharp with good colour and details!
well done
you had a good quality of 24 images of nature, my compliment!
best regards
Tony

Beautiful capture.
It is razor sharp and shows great details.
The BG adds a lot to the photo too.
Great work, congratulations.
Regards, Felipe.

  • Great 
  • clnaef Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 758 W: 57 N: 595] (6125)
  • [2008-05-19 22:56]

Bonjour,
Charmants champignons qui ressortent bien avec ce fond.
Bonne journée.
clnaef

  • Great 
  • Jamesp Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 1223 W: 0 N: 4449] (13290)
  • [2008-05-19 23:44]

Hi Adrian

Lovely shot - well framed plus great colour and excellent detail. Well observed and captured.


James

Hi Adrian very fantastic point of view,impressive quality and excellent light and colours,a 1st class pic,my best compliments,thanks for share,Luciano

Hi Adrian,

First of all about the technical side of this great pic: the fungi in the foreground, mostly their hats are sharp as razorblade. Good natural colors. The background's too grainy though, but You can avoid this problem by using noise reduction and gaussian blur (selectively to the bg) with little radius, let's say, 1-1.2 (or even less) pixels. DOF is well done, too.

Secondly: there's something I don't fully understand. You said You often pick Armillarias. But this is NOT an Armillaria, my Friend! I'm more than surprised nobody (including You) realized this is 100% sure a Pholiota, most probably Pholiota squarrosa, an inedible specie with very bitter taste. It's growing in colonies on dead or living tree in autumn. The fungi in the bg also belong to another specie. It's hard to say, because of the blur, but they seem like Hypholoma sublateritium (inedible) or Kuehneromyces mutabilis (edible).

Please check out the difference between Your specie and the one You wanted to photograph: Armillariella mellea or on the homepage of our fungi club: Armillaria tabescens. These are the most frequent species of the genus in Central Europe.

I like the photo, but please be more careful when collecting mushrooms.

Best regards from Hungary, László

  • Great 
  • rdfoto Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 366 W: 0 N: 715] (3058)
  • [2008-05-21 12:44]

Bonjour Adrian
Excellente composition, très belles couleurs et netteté bon angle de prise, une réussite.
Amicalement Robi

  • Great 
  • iris Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 368 W: 39 N: 654] (2053)
  • [2008-05-31 0:48]

Hi Adrian,
Guess i would never get enough of your beuatiful fungi captures. yet another superb but "dangerous" subject. I like the Dof in this composition and not to mention the lovely texture well pciked up.
Good lighting and saturation.
very well done.
TFS & cheers

Hi Adrian,
What a great capture of these Armillaria!
Composition,exposure and POV are all perfect.
We have a lot of Armillaria in our beech forests here in New Zealand ... but different species to yours.
Our fungi season is almost over now,but there should still be a few Armillaria around.
I've been away a bit so I've missed a lot of recent shots.
Just had a quick look at your photos and I'm very impressed. You've got some amazing shots in your collection and I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers
Steve

Hello Adrian,

A beautiful image, nicely composed, very sharp. But my first thought when I saw it was that it is a Pholiota of some sort. Are you sure that it's an Armillaria? It looks very much like a Pholiota to me, I agree with Laszlo on this one.

Thanks,
John

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