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glowing wood

Trees and Plants!

Postby martingarwood » Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:35 am

Staying over in our wood at the weekend, my son cut down a rotten silver birch. He happened to pass the spot after dark and was amazed to see the stump, the logs and all the wood chips glowing with a subtle green light. My wife and I shot over yesterday evening to see if the phenomenon was still there and witness it ourselves.


By chopping into the wood we too could get glowing. A quick bit of INTERNET research suggested wetting the wood and putting it in the warm.....which we did when we got home and it worked ! We have learnt that the glow comes from honey fungus , it is thought to be the origin of magic wands and was used by troops in the trenches to help identify friend from foe....amazing. We also found a glow worm last night near the same tree stump.


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Postby tracy » Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:04 pm

Wow, that is very cool. Does it come out in a photo?


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Postby Keith Williams » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:54 am

May not be good news - http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1100/honey_fungus.asp I've seen this glowing in the ground when it's very dark - very spooky! I believe it shouldn't harm healthy trees but is very difficult to get rid of.


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Postby carlight » Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:30 pm

hi , oh yes !

did always wonder if the wet/warm scenario brought out the effect to the full .

-can be quite freaky light effect ,when one.s log pile glows green .

glad that others have noticed this - it can be difficult to get folk to believe that it happens ,without them seeing it .


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Postby greyman » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:33 am

Been a Googling and found the following link:

http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/service/library/index.php3?docID=173


Greyman


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Postby martingarwood » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:20 pm

Great link. Iwill keep you posted about how long the wood keeps glowing for.


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Postby wood troll » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:34 am

Hi All,

On Gardener's Question Time (radio 4) last night they mentioned putting benign fungal spors in with the chain oil to infect the tree stump thereby not giving the nasty ones like honey fungus room to move in!

Maybe a thought where honey fungus is a problem.

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