Weeping conk or oak bracket (Inonotus dryadeus): what the sources record

This page describes what three published sources say about one bracket fungus, also listed as Pseudoinonotus dryadeus. It does not identify a fungus from a photo and says nothing about any single tree. The sources come from the United Kingdom and the United States. The parent page, wood decay fungi on trees, compares the fungi that have pages here.

Type of rot and hosts

The Woodland Trust places the fungus among the butt rot fungi and says it causes white rot and decay of the trunk, entering through wounds in the bark. It grows mainly on oak, found at the base of living and dead oaks, and occasionally on beech, birch and alder. The University of Georgia says it mostly affects oaks but can affect conifers too, that it enters trees when a lack of vigour weakens them, and that in oaks the rot does not occur much above ground level. The TCI article calls it a white rot and a root rotter, which it says makes the extent of decay hard to detect. The page on white, brown and soft rot compared sets out how the sources define the rot types.

What it looks like

The Woodland Trust describes a thick, lumpy cushion-like bracket up to 65 cm across and typically 10 to 15 cm thick, sometimes in tiers, with amber droplets oozing from the pores when young. It gives the fruiting season as late summer to early winter. The University of Georgia describes young fruiting bodies as large white lumps, from softball to bowling-ball size, that ooze a clear yellow liquid carrying spores, and says that once they dry they turn woody and are hard to tell from bark.

Where the sources differ

The sources do not agree on whether the bracket is annual or perennial. The TCI article calls the weeping conk an annual that completes its life cycle in one year and looks crusty and blackened or mahogany when old. The University of Georgia calls the fruiting bodies perennial. The Woodland Trust says the caps blacken and crack over winter and sometimes persist for several years. The University of Georgia also says wind and rain spread the spores in November and February.

What the sources say it can indicate

Woodland Trust: says the decay of the trunk eventually leaves the tree prone to toppling, and that the fungus also lives on deadwood.
TCI article: says that because it rots roots, the full extent of decay is hard to find, and that it can be difficult to identify depending on where the bracket is in its life cycle.
University of Georgia: calls it the most common buttress and root collar rotting fungus of water oaks in its report, and says the fruiting bodies are easy to miss once dry.

For how fungi are weighed alongside other findings, see tree risk assessment methods. For credentials of people who examine trees, see consulting arborist credentials.

Management

None of the three sources describes a treatment that removes established root and butt decay. Where chemical use is mentioned for any tree problem, pesticide licences by country says who may apply products to trees.