White fungus under Jeffreyi bark

[Alejandro Concolor]

A friend brought me this piece of a broken limb. Under the bark is this white, cotton like, fungus. Some of the outer xylem is a little punky. There are holes (entrance/exit?, birds??) that are mostly around 4mm in diameter. Too big for a sapsucker, and not uniform enough. There is no pitch tubes from these holes, so me thinks it ain’t no boarer. Holes too small for pine Sawyer? The holes go all the way down to the outer xylem. There is no real evident galleries to speak of underneath the bark.
Any idears?

 

[JD3000]

Could be a sawyer but some of those holes are way too small. See some white rot of some variety and possibly some pockets of brown cubical rot too.

Doesnt look quite right fir the mycellial fans of an Armillaria but could be wrong as the genus is larger than most are aware, myself included.

No galleries is odd but could still be bark beetles or some other dead/dying wood borers. Any blue fungi in cross section? Could all be saprophytic at this point...

In any event, those limbs are dead so investigating the actual tree would be more prudent.

 

[Alejandro Concolor]

Can’t determine if there’s any blue stain because we don’t have any cross sections of the trunk.

 

[JD3000]

Yeah, you'll have to visit the tree.

 

[DSMc]

All the activity visible is from deadwood digesters. A limb killed by pine beetles would show blue stain as well as the trunk. No clues to tree health from that piece of dead limb. Look to the tree as JD suggested.