Lichens

[shirl]

Just tried photographing some lichens on sycamore bark in the garden, not brilliant I am afraid, but here goes. Not sure I have correctly id them

Xanthoria parietina



Lecanora sp





Physcia sp (no fruiting bodies)



Amandinea punctata with Xanthoria parietina



Will practice and try and get some better pics

Shirl

[fairplay]

Hi Shirl,

When can you start ?

(as our full time lichen consultant that is)

Personally I'd love to know lichens better, but like a lot of others I'm sure, I feel I have enough on my plate already.

I'm sure someone will come to your rescue though.

Neil.

[shirl]

Thanks Neil, hope I did id them correctly, some are obvious but the others were my best guess. Not tried macro photography before so they really aren't that good, but I will try and get some better photos. I agree it would be nice to have a lichen forum, would there be enough interest though? There are some superb photos in the Gallery already, much better than mine.

Shirl

[poschiavanus]

From my limited experience these look like sensible IDs.

The Physcia will be one of P. tenella or P. adscendens. The ends of the lobes look pretty hooded, and are not folded back with soralia, so I'd tend to go for P. adscendens.

The Lecanora with large apothecia (or jam tarts if you prefer) might be L. campestris - a pretty widespread species on walls and gravestones, but also apparently on nutrient enriched trees - or L. chlarotera.

Here are some useful link for lichen pictures:

• Alan Silverside's Lichen Pages.
• Mike Sutcliffe's UK Lichens

There is a new site on the Lichens of Ireland, which promises to have a lot of additional information as well as nice pictures: it only has a few species profiles at the moment.

Good hunting,

poschiavanus

[shirl]

Many thanks poschiavanus, will have a look at those website links. Lichens really are superb close up aren't they? The trees in our garden I would say are "nutrient" rich from the birds if nothing else! All the species seem to be both nitrogen and acid tolerant, so the nitrogen goes well with the resident birds. I am not sure how much "acid" there would be, may be some airborne I suppose, but generally speaking it's an alkaline sort of area (limestone hillside).

Thanks again for the info

Shirl

[poschiavanus]

There is a wonderful word to describe what the lichens in your garden are: ornithocoprophilous.

Cromford gets plenty of traffic so that might add to the nitrogen nutrients, but on the other hand you might get limestone dust from the quarry traffic on the trees which would enable colonisation by lichens which are more usually seen on rocks!

poschiavanus

[shirl]

That makes perfect sense - the limestone quarry is about 1/4 mile away and they still use explosives to get the limestone out and they have a crushing plant, you should see the dust in the house so I can imagine what settles on the plants outside. Will try and id all the species in the garden when I get chance.

Shirl

[AlanS]

Originally Posted by poschiavanus

From my limited experience these look like sensible IDs.

The Physcia will be one of P. tenella or P. adscendens. The ends of the lobes look pretty hooded, and are not folded back with soralia, so I'd tend to go for P. adscendens.

The Lecanora with large apothecia (or jam tarts if you prefer) might be L. campestris - a pretty widespread species on walls and gravestones, but also apparently on nutrient enriched trees - or L. chlarotera.

Here are some useful link for lichen pictures:

• Alan Silverside's Lichen Pages.
• Mike Sutcliffe's UK Lichens

There is a new site on the Lichens of Ireland, which promises to have a lot of additional information as well as nice pictures: it only has a few species profiles at the moment.

Good hunting,

poschiavanus

Yes, I agree. Definitely Physcia adscendens - very characteristic material.

The Lecanora (if both are the same which I think they are) looks like L. chlarotera to me - very variable but with that thallus surface that looks rather like porridge. However, despite it being so common, it is one that I prefer to check with the microscope.

Thanks for the link to my website.

Alan

[shirl]

Thanks Alan, brilliant website. Here is another Lecanora from the sycamore tree bark, the colours really do vary, this one has very dark centres.

Shirl

[AlanS]

Originally Posted by shirl

Thanks Alan, brilliant website. Here is another Lecanora from the sycamore tree bark, the colours really do vary, this one has very dark centres.

Shirl

Tricky! This really does look a lot like Lecanora campestris, which Poschiavanus mentions. Evidently the whole of the central part of the thallus is taken up with apothecia. Even the cracking, whitish areas are covered by developing apothecia. This is very characteristic of L. campestris. But does it really grow on bark?

Yes, it is mentioned on bark in the pollution literature, but the British floras consider it to be confined to rocks and walls, or, as a great rarity, on sawn wood. It has a subspecies (dolomitica) which does grow on dust-contaminated bark, in the Peak Distict even, but ssp. dolomitica is identified by the presence of asexual soralia on the surface and normal absence of apothecia! A modern Dutch book I trust and use a lot (Veldgids Korstmossen, by van Herk & Aptroot) also treats L. campestris as confined to rocks and stonework.

Their photograph of L. chlarotera, however, shows a variant with crowded apothecia with rather dark discs, and this is quite a good match to Shirl's latest picture. Allowing for summer drying, I think this is the most likely answer.

But there are other species, including L. argentata, which also need to be considered, and all this is speculation without microscopic examination of a cross-section of an apothecium, and maybe chemical tests. And when the forthcoming new British lichen flora finally appears, who knows what else will appear in this critical group?

So for the moment, I would go for L. chlarotera again, until there is firm evidence that it is not.

By the way, sycamore bark is naturally nutient-rich, before considering the various types of atmospheric deposition.

And Shirl, you are clearly refining your macro technique!

Alan