#lichens

Peccania fontqueriana

There are a lot of these cyanobacterial, microfruticose lichens, but they are often overlooked since they are so smol and obscure. And because of that, we are really lacking photos of them available online. Finding these pics of P. fontqueriana felt a bit like finding a goldmine (thank you Pier Luigi Nimis and Manuel Gil) ! This little gelatinous lichen grows on basic soil and other lichens in arid regions of the Mediterranean and Macaronesia. It is black when dry and dark olive-brown when moist, with forked, cylindrical lobes that grow in compact cushions 1-3 mm wide and 1-2 mm tall. It's apothecia are lecanorine, concolorous with the thallus, and only 0.3-0.8 mm in diameter. Unless you know what you are looking for and are trying really hard to find it (down in the dirt with your hand lens out) you would totally miss this dude in the field. A real pity when he is so adorable, and also an important member of the biological soil crust community, which help to stabilize and enrich soils in harsh environments. P. fontqueriana is out there just doing his best despite being so very small and deserves our adoration!

images: source

Acarospora veronensi

Also me:

Hypogymnia enteromorpha

Budding tube lichen, gut lichen

Hypogymnia lichens are puffy and hollow, like those balloons you use for balloon animals. Do those have a specific name? Probably, but my brain is too full of lichen facts to worry about the names for particular balloons, gotta focus on the particular names of lichens. Anyway, H. enteromorpha has an inflated and hollow, foliose thallus like its fellows, with short, irregularly branched and nodulose lobes with occasional perforations revealing the black inner cavity. The lobes often grow over the top and tangled up with each other in thick masses, or in radial rosettes. The upper surface is pale greenish-gray to brownish, and the lower surface is shiny and black. It produces large, lecanorine apothecia with orange-brown to dark-brown, centrally perforate disks. H. enteromorpha grows on conifer bark and wood (rarely on hardwoods and moss) in eastern Asia and North America, and can be distinguished from similar looking species by its propensity for growing bud-like side lobes which may act as clonal propagules.

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Vainionora americana 

American speck lichen

I heard the U.S. had a pretty big celebration this past weekend. And while I am not a fan of the U.S. as a political entity, I am a big fan of the nature and critters found there in the states, even down to the littlest specks. And by that, I am referring to V. americana, which is native to the eastern US. where it grows in the Blue Ridge mountains down to Alabama. It has a gray-green, rounded, crustose thallus that is areolate to wart-like in texture, often obscured by copious amounts of granular, yellow-green soredia from hemispherical soralia. It produces lecanorine apothecia with pale-pink to brown discs with thick, granular rims. Other members of the Vainionora genus can be found in central and South America, preferring warm, tropical habitats, making V. americana the northernmost species in the group. Just one small part of the diversity that truly makes America (and by that I mean all the Americas) wonderful. Diversity is always worth celebrating and protecting!

images: source | source | source

Usnea scabrata

Straw beard lichen