We found a lot of that blue wood lying around before finding these little fellas that produce it.
Super cool, thanks for sharing.
The blue wood is the mycelial network growing before fruiting into the cups. Effectively, thr rhozomatic growth of the mycelium spreads into the wood substrate until conditions are right for it to pop up.
If that wood burns is the flame blue?
I don’t think so, as being colored blue at room temperature and burning blue are different things. If you think about it, when you burn colored paper you don’t get a correspondingly colored flame.
The pigment is an organic molecule so it’d burn the same color as other organic molecules as the fire breaks it down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylindein. Flame color is based on the elements in the flame. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_test
Wow, this is beautiful! Thank you for posting.
Can the blue wood be stabilised and used in woodworking projects? I guess even then having fungal dust in the air is probably all the worse for your lungs
I doubt it. All the blue wood that we saw was very brittle and/or mushy. I think the mushroom probably needs the wood to be somewhat broken down (and maybe soaked?) to start colonizing it. And then it breaks it down even further. But I suppose it might look really cool in some resin projects!
Edit: Look what I just found on Wikipedia:
It is this compound that is responsible for the characteristic bluish-green stain of wood infected by this species, used today in decorative woodworking such as Tunbridge ware and parquetry. The use of this wood, known as “green oak”, goes back to 15th century Italy, where it was used in intarsia panels made by Fra Giovanni da Veroni
