Never Take Me Seriously Unless I Mean It

Hoo boy, that's the question, huh?

So, fungi are a lot of things. "Fungi" is an entire kingdom of life, like "Plantae" (plants) or "Animalia" animals. Consider how much diversity there is within those 2 groups, and now shift your perception of what a fungi can look like to that level of complexity. In, say, animals, those complex differences are pretty obvious when looking at like, a clam vs a honeybee vs a crocodile vs a human. But in fungi, most of that complexity isn't super visible to the human eye because most fungi are small and cryptic, so it gets overlooked even though the diversity is there.

"Mushrooms" are the fruiting bodies of basidiomycete fungi: just one division of the entire fungal kingdom. A fruiting body is like, well, a fruit! It is a reproductive structure that releases spores, which are like the seeds of plants. These structures are attached to a "mycelium," a connected network of fungal hyphea (long filaments containing fungal cells). Think of the mycelium as like, the trunk of a tree, and the mushroom as an apple.

Not all fungi have a mycelium (the same way not all plants have a trunk)--many are unicellular organisms, and others have simpler body plans, and some (like lichens) have more complicated body plans.

Besides basidiomycete mushrooms, ascomycete fungi produce mostly "cup-shaped" fruiting bodies, often referred to as "mushrooms" even though they aren't technically mushrooms. Confused yet? Stick with me. What is a lichen? Lichenization (a fungus forming a symbiotic relationship with a photosynthesizing organism) is a lifestyle trait more than it is a distinct group. While most "lichens" are ascomycete fungi, there are some basidiomycete fungi that have lichenized as well. It is a way for a fungi (we call it the mycobiont) to basically "farm" algae and/or cyanobacteria (we call these the photobionts) to harvest energy from, and in return the mycobiont provides the photobiont with a safe environment.

Most lichens have "apothecia" as seen in the picture above: the cup-shaped fruiting bodies often found in the ascomycete fungi. BUT some (very few) lichens actually *have* mushrooms because they are a symbiosis between an algae and a mushroom-producing fungi (basidiomycete):

SO to conclude: --Fungi is a diverse kingdom of life --Mushrooms are a reproductive structure of a specific lineage of fungi --Lichens are a symbiotic organism made up of a fungus and a photosynthesizing organism (algae and/or cyanobacteria) --Most lichenized fungi are ascomycetes, but some are basidiomycetes --You can think of lichenization as a lifestyle as opposed to a specific group

Ochrolechia oregonensis

Double-rim saucer lichen, pumpkin pie lichen

I was just explaining the PNW to one of my European coworkers, and how I, being from Boise, Idaho am technically from the PNW but not spiritually, as it never rains in Boise but is always raining in what we spiritually think of as the PNW. I was trying to explain where the line was, and honestly looking at the range of O. oregonensis very much delineates that imaginary divide between technical and spiritual PNW.

Tell me I'm wrong.

This lichen grows on the bark and lignum of conifer trees in humid forests of the Pacific coast of North America, from Alaska down to central California, as far inland as Alberta and Idaho. It has a pale yellow-gray, crustose thallus that is typically thick and warty, but can be thin and membranous as well. It produces distinctive apothecia with pale orange to yellow-orange discs surrounded by a "double-rim" made up of a true margin (made of the same material as the upper layer of the disc) surrounded by a thalline margin (made of the same material as the thallus). As the apothecia grow larger, the thalline margin can become obscured and nearly excluded by the expansive true margin.

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Parmotrema cetratum

This foliose lichen grows on trees and occasionally rock in subtropical and warm-temperate regions of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. It has a loosely attached, foliose thallus with irregular, dentate lobes surrounded with marginal cilia. The upper surface is reticulate pale green-gray to mineral gray, and the lower surface is glossy black and densely rhizinate. It produces substipate, brown-disked, perforated apothecia. P. cetratum can be distinguished from similar species by its thallus chemistry (the presence of salazinic acid) and lack or soredia.

images: source

Porpidia melinodes

I do most of my lichen hunting in Iceland, where orange, crustose lichens are abundant, and often difficult to tell apart. The only one I really feel confident IDing on site is P. melinodes. This crustose lichen grows on siliceous and metal-rich rock (like the igneous rock that is abundant in Iceland) in upland, arctic-alpine areas of the northern hemisphere. It has a smooth or cracked, gray-orange to orange thallus that varies in color intensity across the surface. It is usually surrounded by a gray-black prothallus, and the surface is dotted with pale, gray-blue specked, crateriform soralia. Unlike most other members of its genus I am familiar with, P. melinodes only rarely produces black, lecideine apothecia. When I see soralia as opposed to apothecia, I know exactly who I am dealing with--a welcome exception to the majority of my crustose lichen ID.

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