Quote:
Originally Posted by JennyS  No, and it sounds like that could be useful - do you have a title for it as I haven't had much luck googling it? |
Hi Jenny, David Hawksworth has produced various publications on lichenicolous fungi.
His 1983 booklet entitled "
A Key to the Lichen-forming, Parasitic, Parasymbiotic and Saprophytic Fungi occurring on Lichens in the British Isles"* was a full identification key, 44 pages, with indices to lichen hosts as well as the parasitic (etc.) fungi, and was published by the British Lichen Society. Out of print and much out of date. There have been more recent lists of such fungi but I don't think there has been a more recent full set of keys.
[*Can't understand why this was never a best-selling title.
]
If you are a member of the British Lichen Society, as I assume you are, you can, however download it from Cambridge University Press journals website, as it was first published in the
Lichenologist, vol. 15, part 1, pp. 1-44. (BLS members have on-line access to the complete back history of the
Lichenologist - very useful, I am steadily working my way through.)
As I say, it is seriously out of date - lots of things not in it, others have had their names changed or taxonomy completely altered, some have even changed phyla, but if used with the current checklist of lichenicolous fungi (Hawksworth (2003),
Lichenologist vol 35 part 3, pp. 191-232) then it is possible to make sense of some of these. Much information rests only in original research papers though.
It is a dichotomous key, based on microscopical characters throughout, so no neat and easy descriptions.
So, on to your photographs.
1. Yes,
Vouauxiella. Unfortunately, it seems that both our
Vouauxiella species occur on
Lecanora chlarotera and you need to know if the conidial walls are smooth (
V. lichenicola) or verrucose (
V. verrucosa).
V. lichenicola is the commoner of the two.
2. Not a clue. Several fungi occur on
Baeomyces and nothing stands out in the booklet. I do wonder if this infection could be bacterial though?
Interestingly, but unhelpfully, this same infection is evidently present on the
Baeomyces shown in the photograph in Holien & Tønsberg's '
Norsk lavflora', but they don't make any comment (or if they do, it is hidden in the Norwegian text).
3. Hmm, it does look like a very unhealthy
Physcia, but when I first started to take notice of lichenicolous fungi, I was excited to find little black dots on
P. tenella. I began to realise this infection was quite common though curiously unmentioned by Hawksworth. Then, realisation dawned. The dots were the pycnidia of the lichen itself!
Yours don't look the same and the lichen is clearly sickening for something, but your dots might still be the lichen's pycnidia. Some careful sectioning and microscope work needed.
I fear that the only practical way to get lichenicolous fungi identified is to stick them in front of Brian Coppins.
Alan
Linear Mode
