Quote:
Originally Posted by JennyS  Apologies for the not great photo, but is this one Cladonia arbuscula?
It was from a coastal heathland area where there are pre-2000 records for that 10km sq. 
Jenny |
Hi Jenny,
Sorry for a long-delayed response on this. Partly I am hanging fire on this group until I have worked through a lot of collections of my own, and partly there was quite a long period when I couldn't access this forum (pages kept stalling while loading Google adverts).
Anyhow, all seems to be working again and so back to your photo.
Actually, I don't think it is
C. arbuscula. I am assuming that all Irish
C. arbuscula will be subsp.
squarrosa, and I feel confident your photo is not that. The branches just don't have that strongly swept appearance. It
could be subsp.
arbuscula, but authentic records of that in the British Isles seem only to be in NE Scotland, where I
think I am starting to know it. Similarly it just might be
C. mitis, but that too has a continental distribution and is probably confined now to N.E. Scotland.
So, I fear we are left with our polymorphic friend,
C. portentosa. That's what I think this is. At least some of the branch-tips look to be trichotomous.
I see we are due to meet up at last, on the Bristol workshop (bounces happily) and you could wave it in front of me then? I should have photos of most of this group up on my site by the end of this year too. (Still looking for
C. azorica, though possible chance this weekend, and have not seen
C. mediterranea or
C. stygia yet.)
Alan