Quote:
Originally Posted by SheffieldLass  Found a few days ago on acidic-heathy unimproved grassland near Sheffield (zone where intermediate heath begins to merge with moorland). On a sunny, well drained bank. It caught my attention - I know next to nothing about lichens and didn't get very far with my lichen key on it. It looks as if it ought to be straightforward ....
Suggestions please!
Melanie |
Hello Melanie
One thing lichenologists learn is that when you have a
Cladonia, they are NOT straightforward ....
A large genus, with species often very polymorphic and resembling one another. The bit of good news is that they are not all going to change names when the new lichen flora is published (this week!), though some of the notes in the first edition are expanded. [I have been reading a proof copy with much interest!]
Anyhow, as Poschiavanus has pointed out, you have two
Cladonia species (and possibly a tiny fragment of a third unless it is a moribund state of your main species).
Your main species is
Cladonia diversa. Pale, yellowish green, with the cup ringed with small, red dots (pycnidia). The enlarged photograph confirms these are red, which is critical. We can just about make out the characteristic, small but well defined, corticate granules within the cup, also an important character for confirming this species.
With it is the grey spiky one. Unfortunately, several
Cladonia species can be grey and produce (more or less) unbranched spikes (podetia) and they are very commonly misidentified. In this case, we can see that the podetia are powdery to the base and the podetia have an offset, wedge-like appearance at the tip, with the pycnidia (brown dots this time) on a tiny slope rather than all at the same height. I would like to have seen the characteristic split up the side of each podetium, but I am fairly sure this is
Cladonia glauca. It will grow with
C. diversa and in the links I am going to put below, the uppermost
C. diversa photograph, on the wonderful dunes at Findhorn, does have
C. glauca at the right-hand side, though mostly cropped out of the picture.
Cladonia diversa (images of British lichens) Cladonia glauca (images of British lichens)
Alan
(this post has been brought to you by a well-known chain-store's New York blend coffee)