Uprooted tree diagnosis Brisbane

Eric Frei

Well, just read this story and saw the picture.

Strong winds uproot Jacaranda Tree on Riverside Expressway in Brisbane city | Courier Mail

It is not a jacaranda but a ficus!

Note how sparse the canopy was.

Note how hemmed in the root system was by concrete and roads.

And there are heaps of ficus trees in similar situations around Brisbane, larger than this one! Even with a notoriously vigorous root system they fail.

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James Sayers

looking at them roots thats not one that has been transplanted at some time as thet hav transplanted a fw around bris

Davo The Terrible

A White Fig (Ficus virens) if my memory serves me correctly. It was a nice tree too. Its a real shame we are losing so many of the big figs in Bris.

TrevMcRev

The sparseness of the canopy was surely a giveaway that something was not right.

Davo The Terrible

Possibly, but not necessarily - Ficus virens can be deciduous and it may be just getting its leaves back.

Eric Frei

I checked out, well and truly.

Much of the stump is still sitting there.

It is a ficus microcarpa var hillii, and based on the one just 50m up the road I would say it was perhaps only 30% of the foliage density, means it was sick.

Here's the leaves of it.



Here's a look at the one just up the road to compare it to.





So what other VTA signs did it have? Well, I would say it had indication of Phelinus noxious due to the typical brown crumbly crap on the bark near the soil line.

Of course now that it was tipped over I could inspect the entire root crown, it was totally decayed, 100%!





Here's a look at a buttress with the fungi on it.



Looking from another angle



And looking yet another angle of how it affected the wood



Looking up from underneath at some of the failed roots, note the marbling effect of the fungi on the heartwood.







You can understand the difficulty in seeing the fungi or the fruiting body. The fruiting body isn't all around and only here and there in the buttresses. The give away was the sparse canopy. The decayed marbled wood was not soft, you could not squeeze it like a sponge so that means the lignin (cell walls) was preserved but leaves the wood brittle. There is a lot of information about this here ...

Phellinus Noxius in Brisbane

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Davo The Terrible

Indeed it is - I stand corrected.

Eric Frei

Crikey mate, you were guessing from distance picture.

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