Lichens

Today, the last official day of the Blogger Bioblitz I got out just before 7:00 a.m. (good thing too, because the sky cleared, and we are to be blasted by sunshine for the rest of the day--forecast high of 19C). I've got lists of birds and plants that I will report in another post. I wanted to dedicate this one to something new to me--though no doubt old hat to the field. Lichens.

I came across the lichen below through staring at the ground--something I must do more vigilantly.


How could I ever have missed that brilliant scarlet? Maybe it only shows that way for a brief time. Maybe it's just so small that it's easy to pass it by.

When I first saw it associated with the grey, branchy stuff, being more plant than lichen oriented, I assumed that I was seeing one organism (or as it turns out, one community--lichens are algaes and fungi working together), flowers and foliage. Turns out it is most likely two.


I think the red-capped stuff is British soldier lichen (Cladonia cristatella). I'm not sure about the grey--could be Reindeer lichen (Cladina rangiferina). They were growing in the field just above the wetland around the cedar bush.