While walking the dogs today in the local woods I came across this Beech tree with what I hoped, somewhat romantically, were symbiotic mushrooms growing on it from ground level to the highest branches. No other trees in vicinity had same arrangement. Beech trees do depend entirely on a symbiotic relationship with fungi, but these are in the soil (mycorrhizae) and not, as far as I am aware, as outcrops on the trunk and branches. Not much foliage on tree ( will have to check again in spring) so it is far more likely that the tree is entirely or almost entirely standing dead wood providing for the present a nutrient rich skeleton for parasitic rather than symbiotic fungi, until an Atlantic storm topples it.
Like a scene from Avatar
