Two more Cladonia's for ID Help

[Lancashire Lad]

Found this week (Lancashire) on a fallen & well rotten tree trunk.

Is this likely to be Cladonia bellidiflora?


And could this be Cladonia chlorophaea? (The colouration around the cup margins was distinctly purple-brown, and much less evident than on recent C.diversa finds).


To me, both of the pics. look quite similar to photographs of other Cladonia species, and I'm basing my tentative ID's, (best guesses ), purely on photographic likeness to other images seen on the web.

Any confirmations/other much appreciated.

Regards
Mike.

[AlanS]

Hi again Mike,

I am supposed to be devising a student test for tomorrow, but thank you (I think) for the excuse for displacement activity.

1. Sorry, not Cladonia bellidiflora, which has distinctive, palmately-lobed blue-green to yellow-green squamules clothing the entire podetium from base to tip, diminishing in size upwards.
Your lichen is going to be red-fruited (currently it has small red pycnidia), which puts it in the same group as bellidiflora, but it lacks the squamules and it is densely sorediate, which bellidiflora never is.

This is C. polydactyla. Red pycnidia/apothecia AND cup-forming AND densely grey sorediate. Common and very variable.

2. Most or all is C. fimbriata. The cups narrow very abruptly into the cylindrical stems and they are densely grey-powdery sorediate.
C. chlorophaea is also variable (actually an aggregate of several, morphologically poorly defined species differing in chemistry), but the usual variant is more coarsely granular and the cup tapers more into the stalk. It is possible that you do have C. chlorophaea at the right of the photograph, but most likely this is just variation within C. fimbriata.

Oh well, back to writing this test. (Now can I still have Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of the multiple choice answers - not the correct one! - or has popular culture moved on? Will I need to explain Buffy to the Chinese member of the class? Oh well, one more year ...)

Alan

[Lancashire Lad]

Oh well, back to the drawing board

Thanks again Alan. I thought it might be tempting fate, trying to identify these.
I do appreciate your detailed response, as I can then refer what you are saying against both my photo's, and others on the web. Knowing what indicators I'm looking for definitely does make a difference when actually looking at the photo's.

Best regards
Mike.