Not a layer cake.

Lichens are so confusing! If they would only grow in separate patches, like the rows of beans and carrots in a garden ... But no, they scramble themselves together, on top of, underneath, in the middle of each other.

Like yesterday's puzzle piece. Here it is, again.

Two lichens; identified as a Parmelia sp. and a Hypogymnia sp.

This was a photo taken by my hobby microscope, looking at a twig I'd brought home from the woods.

My twiggy lichen "bouquet"

Just the left-hand twig with its burden of 4 lichens.

One of the lichens is a leafy species; this would be one of the Parmelia spp.  The upper surface is pale greenish-grey, the lower surface, in part, black or dark brown. The edges of the lobes carry tiny soredia, reproductive bodies that look like black specks.

Curly edges of the lobes, with their soredia.

More soredia. Many more.

The underside of one lobe.

The second lichen is a Hypogymnia spp., one of the bone lichens.

The tip of that same twig.

Again, the upper surface is green, the bottom black. But these are long lobes, bone-shaped.

The tip of one of the "bones".

And here, you can see those black patches that are on the two lower layers of the first photo. The upper layer is clear on top, but on the underside it has these root-like structures, holdfasts, called rhizines, which identify this layer as a Parmelia.

Here, so you don't have to scroll back up, is that first photo:

Three layers.

And thanks to the experts on Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island for their help in solving this mystery.

There were 4 lichens on these twigs. The other two, I'll leave for tomorrow.

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¡Los líquenes son tan complicados! Si crecieran por separados, algo así como las lechugas y las zanahorias en un jardín, ... pero, no; tienen que crecer todos amontonados, uno encima, abajo, adentro, en medio del otro.

Como los de la foto que subí ayer. Aquí la subo otra vez.

Fotos:

1. Son dos líquenes, una Parmelia y una Hypogymnia. Esta fue una foto hecha por mi microscopio "hobby" viendo una ramita que me traje del bosque.
2. Las dos ramitas en un recipiente.
3. La ramita de la izquierda con su mezcla de 4 líquenes.
4. Una de las ramitas es un liquen folioso, de las especies Parmelia. La superficie superior es de un verde grisáceo; la parte inferior tiene manchas café oscuros o negros. Y los bordes de los lóbulos llevan unas bolitas negras, cuerpos reproductivos llamados soredia.
5. Otra foto con soredia.
6. La parte inferior de un lóbulo.
7. El segundo liquen es una Hypogymnia, uno de los llamados líquenes de hueso. Los lóbulos son largos, con forma de hueso.
8. Esta foto muestra la punta de una rama, y se ven las manchitas negras que también se ven en los dos niveles de la foto primera.
9. Que se repite aquí por conveniencia. Se ve que el liquen superior es sin manchas en la parte superior, pero debajo lleva estas estructuras parecidas a raices, "agarraderas", o rizinas, los cuales identifican este liquen como Parmelia.

Muchas gracias a las peritas del grupo Facebook Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island por su ayuda con la identificación.

Había 4 líquenes en esas ramitas. Dejo los otros dos para mañana.

Lichen samplers

Lichens on bark, found underneath cottonwoods at Oyster Bay:

Leaf lichen, and crust lichens, maybe bark barnacle.

Another piece of bark. Black, brown, green, yellowish dots and circles.

I look at the photos in my guide, read through the descriptions, and decide that I know what species a lichen is. Then I read it all again and change my mind.

It doesn't matter: they're beautiful, no matter what species they are.

Green tree jackets

In the lower stretches of Woodhus Slough, where the trees spend the winter with their feet in icy water, they wear thick, shaggy jackets.

Good insulation!

Dressed for the winter.

Our weather is changeable, even in mid-winter. At times, after a week or so of warm, sunny days, the temperature will drop suddenly, overnight, and howling winds will drive the chill even lower. At these times, sap that has been rising in the warmed trees suddenly freezes, splitting the bark, killing saplings.

In our gardens and yards, we rush out (if we have been procrastinating, as usual) and wrap our young trees in burlap or plastic or whatever we have on hand to cut the wind. One year, I used leftover carpet cuttings. Whatever works.

In the wild, the trees are on their own. A thick lichen outfit is a lifesaver.

Skinny leaves and stretchy cords

Where there is moss in our coastal forests, there is also lichen. I am fascinated by its myriad forms; so intriguing!

Here are some of the photos taken on the moss walk, identified only to general type.

This would be a leaf lichen. Shrub lichens have cylindrical stems; this has flattened stems, like skinny leaves.

Another skinny leaf lichen.

A ruffled leaf, or rag lichen. (Ragbag?)

Appressed leaf lichen. 

A hairy, "beard" lichen, fallen in great clumps from the trees above.

Fuzzy photo through a wet lens. Usnea sp.

This lichen genus (Usnea) is easily identified (to genus, anyhow) by the tough central cord. Our guide is demonstrating here. The cord is elastic; if you pull gently on both ends, it stretches out visibly, uncoiling. Release it, and it springs back.

I brought home a sample. I just re-tested what's left of it, dry and stiff after a week in a bag. It still stretches.

A bit of everything, all growing together. At least four lichens, yellowish shelf mushrooms with purple borders, two mosses, and salal leaves, on a dead branch.

More mixed lichens on an evergreen branch. The recent wet weather brought down many branches from overhead; usually these are out of reach.

This week, I walked most of the Ripple Rock trail, and brought back more moss and lichen photos, as well as some interesting spiders and mushrooms. Then I flipped rocks on the Tyee Spit beach at low tide; a treasure trove! I don't know which I'll post first; all the photos call out to be processed, "now! Me first!"

When it's wet ...

... it's very wet. At least here, in our coastal rain forests. And being wet, it's also green, very green.

Lungwort, a large, leafy lichen, grows on trees. And when the rains are heavy and prolonged, it falls off in great chunks. I picked one up beside our trail in Miracle Beach park, vibrantly green, after weeks of soaking.

Lungwort, Lobaria pulmonaria, on wet log, moss, and maple leaves.

If you look closely (check the middle lobe on the far right), the reproductive structures, soredia and/or isidia, are visible as small, brownish lumps along the edge and the ridges.

Soredia are powdery propagules composed of fungal hyphae wrapped around cyanobacteria or green algae. (Wikipedia)
An isidium is a vegetative reproductive structure ... They are fragile structures and may break off and be distributed by wind, animals, and splashing raindrops. (Wikipedia)

I flipped the lichen over. The underside was lumpy, almost white, except for the pale brown wool in the valleys.

Lungwort underside. Some of the soredia are visible along the edges.

I don't often see this lichen so brilliantly green. Once the rains stop, it dries to a pale yellowish brown.

Lungwort in dry weather. Taken at Brown's Bay, last February.

Lichen under snow

Whatever the weather, lichens bravely soldier on. I found these on an old railing yesterday.

Spalted wood, rusty nail, lichens and melting snow.

A leaf lichen with an unusual centre, sort of like a tiny, green cauliflower.

Lichen "leaves" are like snowflakes; no two alike.

Lichen, snow, and a budding branch.

Wikipedia has a long article on lichens. Some interesting tidbits:

Lifespan is difficult to measure because the definition of what constitutes the "same" individual lichen is not precise: ... lichens grow by vegetatively having a piece break off, which may or may not be considered to be the "same" lichen; moreover, two lichens can grow into each other and then become the "same" lichen.

The European Space Agency has discovered that lichens can survive unprotected in space. ... two species of lichen ... were sealed in a capsule and launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket .... Once in orbit, the capsules were opened and the lichens were directly exposed to the vacuum of space with its widely fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation. After 15 days, the lichens were brought back to earth and were found to be in full health with no discernible damage from their time in orbit.

(No wonder they don't mind bare cliffs!)

They can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains, and in the soil as part of a biological soil crust in arid habitats such as deserts. Some lichens do not grow on anything, living out their lives blowing about the environment.

Most poisonous lichens are yellow.

In the past Iceland moss ... was an important human food in northern Europe, and was cooked as a bread, porridge, pudding, soup, or salad. Wila ... was an important food in parts of North America, where it was usually pitcooked. Northern peoples in North America and Siberia traditionally eat the partially digested reindeer lichen ... after they remove it from the rumen of caribou or reindeer that have been killed.

And this:

Microscopic lichen growing on concrete dust. Square: 1.7 mm. Photo: Bob Blaylock.

Lichens confuse me, and the more I read, the more confused I get. But they're fascinating, so varied and so inventive; worth the effort to try to make sense of them.

Hair, leaves, lungs. And more hair.

I never get tired of looking at lichens and fungi, in all their myriad forms. These ones are all growing on wood, old and new.

Three lichens on a rotting stump, Upper Campbell Lake.

Fuzzy bracket fungi on a log. Upper Campbell Lake.

Lungwort (Lobaria pulmonaria) and moss on a living tree, Gold River.

Dry rot is caused by a fungus, too. Keta Lake.

Entire trees colonized by hair lichen. Rooney Lake.

It is estimated that 6% of Earth's land surface is covered by lichen. (Wikipedia)

Reindeer, pixies, and no bears.

In the upper Bella Coola valley, I stopped at Burnt Bridge to look for mushrooms. The forest floor here is often thick with boletus (edible if you can find them without worms; they make a nice, beefy gravy), Russula (they say they're edible, but you may as well eat erasers) and fly agaric (definitely not edible). But my timing was off; there were no 'shrooms, not even puffballs.

But there were lichens, and a bear tree; even better.

A reindeer lichen, with mosses.

More reindeer. The dark specks on the tips are fruiting bodies. (Click for a better view.)

Mosses, evergreen needles, and a densely curled lichen.

Leaf lichen on a dead tree branch.

Many lichens on a rock. Large leaf lichen, tiny pixie cup cladonia, a smaller leaf lichen, and several species of tiny crustose lichens.

And the bear tree? I've seen these several times in this patch of forest; dead trees that the bears have been using to sharpen their claws on and maybe to scratch their backs with. This one was ripped from knee-height to well above my head.

Do the bears choose a dead tree, or is it dead because the bears chose it?

I didn't see any bears.

There's always lichen

With the rain, come the rain lovers. The fungi, the slimes, the lichen.

At Crescent Beach, yesterday, I examined one lichen-encrusted tree.

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.

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.

The same branch, zooming in. And there's a white dusty heart, for Clytie.

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.

On a well-rotted log, pierced by dead blackberry canes, and tinted with bright slime.

Driveway decor

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.

Grey-green leaf lichen, Pincushion sunburst lichen, and, I think, the beginnings of a moss patch.

Feeding on the paint? Or do the birds perch on the lamp and fertilize it?

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.