With the rain, come the rain lovers. The fungi, the slimes, the lichen.
At Crescent Beach, yesterday, I examined one lichen-encrusted tree.
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| The common flat-leafed grey-green lichen: flat, loosely attached lobes, tiny fruiting bodies, shiny black lower surface. Above it on the trunk is an acid-green leaf lichen, and a grey crust covered with round, saucer-like apothecia. |
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| Another branch, more leaf lichens, more crust, and a spiky, thin-leafed cluster. And this is a confused tree; look at the base of the branch on the left. See the new pink bud? Thinks it must be spring, given the constant warm(ish) rain. |
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| The same branch, zooming in. And there's a white dusty heart, for Clytie. |
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| I didn't even notice until I was trying to identify that green stuff, that this section of branch has 4 or maybe 5 red mites on it. Do you see them? |
While I looked at lichen, Laurie clambered through the bush, dodging blackberry canes, to get close to this big clump of shelf polypore.
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| On a well-rotted log, pierced by dead blackberry canes, and tinted with bright slime. |
I love seeing the various shapes that lichen can be! Someday, I will get around to recording them...
ReplyDeleteLove lichens. We don't have any of the feathery, spikey kinds round where I live. Wish we did.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes for 2013.
I never realized how ubiquitous lichen is... we get it on the granite rocks here in Joshua Tree where there is very little moisture, and yet it somehow manages to survive.
ReplyDelete