At the entrance to a Beach Grove house, a raised corner bed holds periwinkle vines and a painted metal path light, knee-high. On that one lamp, none of the others, and nowhere else nearby, a small collection of lichens grows.
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| Grey-green leaf lichen, Pincushion sunburst lichen, and, I think, the beginnings of a moss patch. |
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| Feeding on the paint? Or do the birds perch on the lamp and fertilize it? |
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| Zooming in. Look at the photo full-size to see the dark grey hairs growing out of the thalli, near the edges. I don't know if they're reproductive structures or holdfasts, or something else entirely. |
It needs a little concrete gnome sitting in its shade or a caterpillar with a hookah lounging on top.
ReplyDeleteI've been out photographing lichens and liverworts and have noticed the threads too. Have yet to look them up.
I have the green ones (as far as I can tell) growing on my truck's camper shell, and the fiberglass shade roof in the backyard. I tried unsuccessfully for years to get them to grow anywhere else.
ReplyDeletei have the same lichens in my garden :)
ReplyDeleteAmazing! The yellow one looks like sea squirts. I definitely need to take a closer look at lichens!
ReplyDeleteComment1 "Sea squirts." They do, don't they? I never noticed that before.
ReplyDeleteSnail, I like the idea of the caterpillar/hookah. If he sat there long enough, he'd have lichen patterns on his back.
The yellow one looks like xanthoria polycarpa, it is a nitrogen loving lichen that would probably love bird poop.
ReplyDeleteMoss Mom, It does. They're all over here; it's a bird-poopy place!
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