Crustose lichens for id

[INHT]

In an attempt to not produce such a daunting list I'm going to post several posts in stages. I do hope you'll bear with me. I'm so keen to learn about lichens and waiting on Dobson's new edition and struggling with identifying these lichens which were all on a beautiful wall at Sanaigmore, Islay. I wish I'd been there with the BLS when they came! So here's a few with my tentative ids. Any help would really be appreciated. Thanks, Becky

1) Lecanora fugiens?



2) Pertusaria pluripuncta?



3) Buellia aethelea



4)

5)

[AlanS]

Hi Becky,

please forgive note form.

1) Lecanora campestris

2) Definitely not Pertusaria pluripuncta, which in any case is a very rare species in Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly. There are some bits of Ramalina sticking out, so the whole thing might be the mollusc-grazed basal crust of Ramalina siliquosa. I'm not sure, need a clearer view of surface details.

3) Not Buellia aethalia, apothecial margins too pronounced. Likely to be Rhizocarpon reductum, with R. hochstetteri below, subject to chemical and microscopic confirmation.

4) Haematomma ochroleucum, with immature, red apothecia.

5) Possibly Porpidia cinereoatra, but photo isn't very large, and the apothecia don't seem pruinose enough. Looks like a Porpidia though. Probably.

New Dobson has quite a bit of new information, and a number of new species, but the printing copy of the photographs, at least in my copy, is disappointingly poor - much inferior to ed. 5.

Alan

[INHT]

Thanks, Alan. Sorry to take so long to reply. I met Heidi, secretary of BLS, on Cape Clear Island and it was good to talk to her. She had the old edition of Dobson and a German book on lichens which looked really good. I don't think it's available in English though so I might just have to save up for Dobson!