Recently a friend informed me of a local area, Rashielea Wood, where there was a lot of deforestation taking place. I had been discussing the fact that I wanted to find a slim tree trunk to cover in tissue paper, and he suggested I might find one here.
The site was very messy, as he had told me, and there were piles of trunks and branches being left to rot. He had “salvaged” some of this for his wood burning stove, but warned me to take care where I stepped, as there was much unsafe ground around the site.
I had a look around first, and (above) it looked like some kind of apocalyptic nightmare, however to the right of the site, there was a swathe of yellow of gorse bushes, a stark contrast to the devastation of the big tree graveyard.
I also came across some interesting fungi in this area: toadstools, bracket fungus and what I think may be evidence of tinder fungus.
A solitary specimen growing in the midst of bark chippings
Tree fungus which I think may be sulphur polypore otherwise known as sulphur shelf or chicken mushroom
Some loose bark which appears to have had tinder fungus growing under it
I took the bark (above) away with me, and also found a couple of slim trunks (below) which I think I may be able to use. My next plan is to cover the trunks with tissue paper, to recreate them as a sort of installation. The bark has possibilities too, and I’m thinking that I may use it as a mould to fill with paper pulp, as it is very delicate and will probably break quite easily.
Antidotal Recall 