In the hush of an old woodland, where trembling aspens flicker like coins of light and spruce roots braid themselves through centuries of memory, there is another kingdom quietly at work beneath the bark. It is neither plant nor animal, but something older in spirit and stranger in form — the fungal realm. To kneel beside a weathered trunk and notice a shelf fungus protruding from its side is to glimpse the forest speaking in another language.

These woody shelves, called polypores, are the fruiting bodies of immense underground and internal fungal networks. The name “polypore” refers to the tiny pores beneath the cap, replacing the delicate gills of other mushrooms. When these fungi harden into woody, hoof-shaped structures, arborists and foragers alike call them conks. They are the visible punctuation marks of a hidden process: decomposition, renewal, and the recycling of life itself.

The forest does not waste.

A conk may seem lifeless at first glance — gray as stone, ridged with age, fixed immovably to the trunk. Yet within it are millions of spores waiting for the right wind, the right wound, the right moment. Like rings in a tree, many shelf fungi add a fresh layer of spore-producing tissue each growing season. Some years produce two flushes of growth, making time itself difficult to measure precisely. One conk with eight visible layers may be four years old, or perhaps eight. Fungi, like forests, resist human impatience.

Among the most recognizable is Fomes fomentarius, the tinder conk, hard and gray, shaped uncannily like the hoof of a horse. Nearby may grow Ganoderma applanatum, known as artist’s conk because its creamy white underside bruises dark when touched, preserving every line like charcoal on parchment. A child can sketch a bird upon it with a fingertip, and the forest will keep the drawing for years.

These organisms are not invaders in the simple sense. They are recyclers, chemists, undertakers, and midwives of succession. Roughly 1,700 species of wood-rotting polypores have been documented in North America alone, each evolved to unlock the dense architecture of wood. Trees build themselves from sunlight, water, minerals, and carbon dioxide. Fungi dismantle those structures molecule by molecule, returning nutrients to soil and life to the ecosystem.

Without fungi, forests would choke upon their own dead.

Yet their appearance on a living tree often tells a more sobering story. Shelf fungi are usually dead-wood dependent organisms, thriving on weakened, wounded, scarred or dying tissue. Most wood decay begins when airborne spores enter exposed wood through injury. A broken limb. A careless pruning cut. A scar from construction equipment. Fire, lightning, drought, sunscald, insects boring into bark — all become doorways.

The fungus does not create the weakness alone. Often, it merely answers an invitation.

A stressed tree becomes vulnerable. Heat waves, compacted soils, severed roots, and prolonged drought leave trees physiologically exhausted, less able to compartmentalize decay. The fungal mycelium moves silently through sapwood and heartwood, digesting lignin — the very compound that gives wood its strength. What appears externally as a single shelf may conceal columns of internal decay extending metres above and below the fruiting body.

Knock on such a trunk with your knuckles or a sounding hammer and the tree may answer with a hollow resonance, a wooden echo hinting at unseen rot within.

And still, the forest persists.

Woodpeckers arrive next. Sapsuckers drill neat rows into stressed bark to drink rising sap. Beetles tunnel through softened wood. Mosses gather moisture in fissures. Cavities become homes for owls, chickadees, squirrels, and raccoons. What humans call decay, ecosystems call opportunity.

A wildlife tree is not a failed tree. It is a standing community.

This understanding lies at the heart of wise forestry and compassionate arboriculture. Too often, those appreciating our urban forests treat trees as isolated ornaments rather than members of a living network. We prune aggressively, wound roots, compact soil, and sterilize deadwood from greenspaces as though death itself were untidy. Yet forests thrive through cycles of growth, injury, decomposition, and renewal.

The great mycologist-naturalists remind us to look deeper. Paul Stamets writes of fungi as Earth’s neurological network, threading intelligence through ecosystems. Merlin Sheldrake invites us to see forests not as collections of individuals but as entangled conversations. David Arora teaches us to approach mushrooms with curiosity, humility, and delight — to kneel in the leaf litter and truly observe.

And observation changes stewardship.

If we wish to care for our trees and forests, we must first stop imagining ourselves outside of them.

The Kenyan initiative Watu Wa Miti — “People of the Trees” — understood this profoundly. Founded in 1922 by Richard St. Barbe Baker alongside Chief Josiah Njonjo, the movement began with a deceptively simple pledge: plant ten trees every year, protect trees everywhere, and perform one good deed daily. It was not merely a forestry campaign. It was a moral philosophy rooted in reciprocity.

To care for forests is to care for future shade we may never sit beneath.

Modern arborists know there is no true cure once aggressive wood-decay fungi establish themselves deeply within a tree. Species such as Phellinus tremulae (Aspen Bracket) and Schizophyllum commune (Common Split Gill) colonize stressed wood and produce characteristic fruiting bodies that reveal internal decline already underway. By the time conks appear, the hidden mycelial network may have occupied large portions of the trunk or roots.

The task, then, is prevention and respect.

Protect roots from compaction. Avoid unnecessary wounds. Prune properly and sparingly. Water young trees deeply during drought. Preserve diverse forests rather than monocultures. Leave some deadwood in naturalized areas so fungal and insect communities can continue nutrient cycling. Understand that fungi are not enemies to eradicate, but indicators of ecological imbalance and participants in renewal.

And perhaps most importantly: do not destroy the evidence.

Removing a conk from a tree does not remove the fungus within. The visible mushroom is merely the reproductive structure, while the true organism — the mycelium — permeates the wood invisibly. Tearing off fruiting bodies may reduce spore dispersal, but it does not halt decay. In damp weather, such disturbance may even aid spore spread.

The forest is subtler than our attempts to control it.

To walk among trees is to walk among beings engaged in constant transformation. A fallen birch nourishes fungi. Fungi nourish soil. Soil nourishes seedlings. Seedlings become forests. Forests shape climate, hold water, soften wind, cool cities, and shelter life.

Every conk on a trunk is both warning and wisdom.

It tells us that trees are mortal. That wounds matter. That ecosystems recycle grief into fertility. And that caring for forests means more than planting trees — it means protecting relationships: between roots and rain, fungi and woodpeckers, insects and bark, people and the living earth.

If we listen closely enough, even a silent shelf fungus can teach us how to belong to the forest again.

Thank you to Scott Kindrachuk, Supervisor with Urban Forestry in the City of Saskatoon Parks Department. From June 9–11, arborists will be working in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area to professionally remove selected standing dead trees identified as potential falling hazards, fire risks, or disease concerns. These trees will be marked with a spray-painted dot prior to the commencement of work.

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““Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven..” Richard St. Barbe Baker