Five crustose lichen

[JennyS]

Much more boring - I've gone back to trying to figure my crustose backlog!

1. On tombstone in coastal graveyard .... wondered Caloplaca ochracea but I forgot my lemon to test the stone ...




2. Candellariella species? In a small crevice in the ruined church wall, not an obvious bird-perch site but pigeons nesting in ruins immediately above.




3. Same bit of church wall - Lecanora helicopis?



4. Verrucaria striatula?




5. Verrucaria again - higher up the beach than 4. and in a sheltered, shaded cleft in the rocks

[AlanS]

Sigh, I wish someone would do MY crustose backlog!

Anyhow, my opinions, such as they are:

1. I would have thought Caloplaca crenularia or C. ceracea.

2. Yes, looks a lot like Candelariella coralliza - as you say, not normally a crevice species, but the pigeons will be giving it just the nutrients it wants. An estate I am looking at has C. coralliza growing happily on an ancient stone sundial that the birds (very) evidently use.

3. Could be. I have various collections I have not worked through yet, so I am keeping my coastal Lecanora guesses to myself for the time being.

4. Yes, it looks very much like Verrucaria striatula.

5. It seems like it may have a thin, whitish thallus, with all those projecting perithecia. As a guess, and NOT a definite ID, maybe Verrucaria internigrescens? Not a species I know.

Alan

[JennyS]

Thanks Alan ....... I'll try and find some foliose ones next instead of delving further into the crustose backlog!

[Alain]

3) Cf Buellia aethalea

4) Cf a green morph of Verrucaria amphibia

5) Cf Verrucaria striatula ?

Alain

[AlanS]

Originally Posted by Alain

3) Cf Buellia aethalea

4) Cf a green morph of Verrucaria amphibia

5) Cf Verrucaria striatula ?

Alain

3) Certainly not Buellia aethalia, which has innate, black, lecideine apothecia! The apothecia shown here are lecanorine, with distinct, thalline margins, and they are superficial, not set in the thallus.
It doesn't look like Lecanora helicopsis to me, but with those brown apothecia a possibility might be Protoparmelia badia (would then be var. cinerascens with a grey, not brown thallus). It can form a dark prothallus as shown in the photograph. If not, then I don't have another suggestion just now, though it would have to be a Lecanora of some sort.

4) Still looks like V. striatula to me. As far as can be told from the photograph, the perithecia appear to be wrongly shaped for V. amphibia, and the thallus surface does not appear to match that species.
Verrucaria spp. are hard enough in the field, let alone trying to identify them from photographs, but striatula still looks the best guess.

5) Yes, could be striatula, but looking at the photograph again, and noting the very thin thallus, I think my money might now be on V. ditmarsica (but only as a very small bet). The white material I thought might be thallus before might be nothing to do with the lichen.

Alan

[AlanS]

Worth noting that this is a two-year old post of Jenny's that has been revived. She may well have her own views on these by now!

Alan

[JennyS]

I'd forgotten all about these!

Interesting to have the post revived and thanks Alan for your suggestion of Protoparmelia badia for the third - looks a far better match than my tentative Lecanora helicopis. I'll get back that way sometime and get a couple apothecia to check the spores.

The Verrucaria's were on coastal rocks near that church - if I rummage through my external drives I might find the original photo of 5 for clues on the white stuff!