Dog bones?

 In my (limited) experience, most lichen identification depends a lot on matching named photographs to what you have found.  This is how I started off identifying wildflowers, flicking through the book to find a picture that looked similar to what I was looking at.   Once I started to record what flowers I had found, it became important to make an accurate ID and I moved on to using keys, beginning with a really useful book called "The Wild Flower Key"  by Francis Rose.

With flowers, the keys concentrate on what you can see with the naked eye, or sometimes a lens to see small details such as hairs. 

However, although there are keys in my lichen book, they quite often use details which amateur observers might not have access to, such as what the spores look like under a microscope, or chemical tests. Also the lichens tend to have just scientific names rather than common ones that are easy to remember, so I have been giving some lichens my own names to try and remember them. When I spot a new lichen, my usual method is to take lots of photos to look at when I get home and compare with photos on the internet.  

I found this bright orange lichen on a wall on Newtonmore Main Street, along with some grey lichens and mosses.

I thought an orange one might be easy to identify as there are not that many orange or yellow lichens and most of them have names that begin with Xanthoria.

This is the most common orange lichen that usually grows on trees, but also grows on walls.

Xanthoria parietina on an aspen tree

Close up on a hawthorn twig: X. parietina can turn greener in the shade

So the first step was to check that the new lichen actually was different. here are close up photos side by side.

Xanthoria parietina on the left; the new lichen on the right

I can see that they are different - instead of leafy lobes, the new lichen has smaller lobes that look a bit like dog bones - or when looked at more closely - it looks like battered tempura! So tempura lichen became my name for it...

(the lines are 1mm apart)

With some help from the Scottish Lichens Facebook group, it got its real name, Xanthoria elegans, and it also has another name - the Elegant Sunburst lichen.

(Update - after showing some of the photos to another lichen group, they did not think it was Xanthoria elegans  - but not enough info to decide what Xanthoria species it was - so it will have to remain as tempura lichen  for the time being!)

There is another lichen that reminds me of dog bones, Hypogymnia tubulosa.  So here is a quiz for you - can you spot the dog bone lichen?

Star Jelly

 When walking the dog on the lower section of Newtonmore Golf Course, I saw a blob of translucent whitish jelly, which looked just like the water holding gel you put in hanging baskets, once it has absorbed water and swelled up.  I poked it with my foot and wondered how it got there and walked on.  A few days later, I saw a picture of something similar on the internet (here) which called it Star Jelly.  So I went back to take a photo, though the size of the clump was now smaller. The toe of my boot gives you some indication of the size.

There does not seem to be any agreement on what it actually is - explanations range from an algae that has absorbed water, the contents of a frog's oviduct that has been regurgitated by whatever ate it (frog spawn without the eggs), moon or star poo! The BBC conducted an investigation with no clear results:

Theories so far: Hans Sluiman, an algae expert at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, told Out of Doors listeners he is convinced the gel itself is not a plant or animal.

Dr Andy Taylor studies fungi at the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen. He says there are fungus filaments in the slime but agrees with Hans that they're growing in the gloop rather than creating it.

DNA tests: Andy's team at the Macaulay Institute ran DNA tests on a sample, but the results were inconclusive - the sample was contaminated.

from  https://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/outdoors/articles/jelly/

I think I tend towards the frog theory but who knows....

Stonewalling

I am still enjoying looking out for lichens and I am gradually getting more familiar with the names.  I have joined a FaceBook page called Scottish Lichens where people are very helpful and give advice on identifying lichens from your photos.

There is a dry stone wall just by the first cattle grid at the top of Glen Road. There wasn't much to see when I visited it on this day!

However, when the snow has melted,  it is full of interesting patterns formed by lichens. Most of the lichens are the crustose ones – they look as if they are painted on – and are stuck to the surface of the stone.  They don’t come off if you rub them.

Here are a few – some with names.

Rhizocarpon geographicum - Map lichen

The next one is quite distinctive and is the Blood Spot lichen.  It likes upland areas and acid rocks so there is quite a lot up the Glen on boulders.

Ophioparma ventosa - Blood spot lichen

The "blood spots" are actually reproductive structures.

 The blood spots release spores which have to find the right alga before they can grow into another lichen.

The next one is like a miniature coral,  Pertusaria corallina 

(That's snow as well!)

Pertusaria corallina

It is covered in tiny "fingers" called isidia.  It is one way a lichen spreads itself, as when they break off they can start to grow elsewhere. They are like little packets with both the fungus and the alga so it has everything it needs to start growing if it finds a suitable spot.

This rust coloured one is probably Lecidea lithophila.  "Stone lover" (litho= stone, phila=lover).  The white, red and black parts are all the same lichen. You can see some Map Lichen near it.

Next time you are out for a walk, take time to look closely at  walls and boulders.  You may be surprised at what you can find.