#cladoniaceae

Found in the same parts of Australia as hookeri, but also in New Zealand, and New Caledonia. Unlike that species, it is lignicolous and grows on wood, preferrably wood that has been charred by fire. No shortage of that in Australia.

Various locations around Perth.

One of three in the genus, all endemic to Australia, and the first genus of lichen based on Australian specimens. It was first collected by James Drummond (him again!) in the 1840s, and named after William Jackson Hooker, the first director of Kew Gardens and Drummond's sponsor at the time.

The two common ones are very different in what they'll grow on. The ones above were growing on very crumbly soil at Lol Gray. Here it is growing on abandoned termite mounds, and chunks thereof, in Julimar State Forest.

Unlike its sister species Thysanothecium scutellatum, hookeri is terricolous, growing on soil, clay-cemented sand, termite mounds, anthills, and sandstone boulders. See the next post for the preferences of the other.

Another species from a large genus I've covered before.

Some are cup-bearing, and others are mat forming. I think this is one of the cup-formers. Reindeer moss is one of the mat-forming species, and luxuriant carpet-like growth of another Cladonia species is one of the defining characters of grey dune, a priority habitat for conservation under the E.U. Habitats Directive.

Widely spread in New Zealand, particularly in subalpine bogs, grassland, and heathland. But also known from East and South Africa, Madagascar, Central and South America and SE Australia and Tasmania.