Spring?

The weather has at last become more springlike - the lying snow has melted in the village though there is still snow on the hills. Snowdrops and crocuses have started to flower and the daffodils are putting up green shoots and some buds.

There are no "wild" snowdrops or daffodils in Newtonmore.  All the ones you see in waste ground are the result of people dumping their garden rubbish.  It is rather ironic that I had someone complaining today that they could not get snowdrops to grow in their garden, when they seem to grow against all odds in "throw out" material! Once snowdrops get going, they easily multiply by developing more bulbs or by seeding nearby.

All the snowdrops I have seen out and about are "common or garden" ones that go by the name of Galanthus nivalis but there are other fancier species.  If you think you have something a bit different in your garden, there is a simple online ID guide by Mick Crawley to help you decide what it is here. Snowdrop lovers (Galanthophiles) pay a lot of attention to the green markings on the inner petals which can take different patterns.  The common snowdrop has an upside down green V shape.  Here is one from my garden: 

When taking this photo, I was surprised by the strong scent of honey that came from the flower.  I had never noticed it before. If you have snowdrops in your garden, pick one and take a sniff!

Beards and Flying Saucers

 One of my first posts on lichens was about Usnea, Beard lichens.  I am gradually getting better at seeing the difference between the different species and saw two examples on the Wildcat Trail at Allt Laraidh (Aultlarie), at the North end of the Newtonmore.  

Last week you could walk up to the falls, which were full of water from the recent rain and snowmelt:

This is a lovely walk but at the moment (late February 2021) the path has washed away so only the lower part is accessible.

Lower down the Allt Laraidh, was a fallen tree.

A fallen willow

This is a lichen hunter's dream as all the lichens that grow high up are now within easy reach.  And there were plenty of lichens to look at.

My favourite was this one - with the flying saucers:

Usnea subfloridana with circular fruits

The fruiting bodies are circles with "eyelashes" growing out of them, and I have never seen them before.

The other lichen that was new to me was long and dangly:

The long strands look a bit like fish bones:

I think this one is Usnea dasopoga.

If you are not interested in naming lichens, there is still plenty to admire  - like this next box, also at Allt Laraidh, which is growing its own camouflage!

Pixie Cups

There is one group of lichens that is easy to spot. They are like miniature forests. The "trees" can take different shapes, the most obvious being a tiny goblet or "pixie cup."

Beneath the "trees" is a layer of tiny leaves (called squamules) like the grass in a forest.

This group all go by the name Cladonia and they come in many forms. As well as the cup shape, they can be thick and stumpy:

or pointy:

or tubular (these remind me of some sort of sea creature):

or have "fingers"

The one with "fingers" is Cladonia polydactyla  (polydactyla = many fingers) but I needed an expert to confirm that identification as the group called Cladonia are not easy to ID with certainty.

Some of them have blobs (called apothecia) on the ends, red in these pictures, which produce spores to spread the lichen.  The green powdery appearance on the "trunk" (fairy dust!) is another way it spreads itself.

Cladonia grow on bark, moss, and rotting wood so you can see some in Newtonmore without going far. Check out the fence on the path between the Main Street and Craig Dhu Road, opposite Curley's lane.

Happy Hunting!

Branching out

 As lockdown continues,  and the local walks become increasingly familiar, I have enjoyed keeping a lookout for new (to me) lichens.  As there about 250 recorded around the Newtonmore area and I have only come to grips with about 30, there are plenty more to look out for.  I am enjoying the posts on the Scottish Lichens Facebook group which is a great way to get a feel for what a lichen might be, which is the first hurdle. In February, we are having a Twig Challenge, so I went in search of an interesting twig.  I found one on the hawthorn on the top Golf Course (the Loch Imrich end).  There aren't many hawthorns locally apart from those planted in hedges.

Hawthorn berries 

Here is a small length of twig that I thought was interesting:

Hawthorn twig festooned with lichens

There are at least 9 lichens on this short length of twig (2 in the purple ring):

There are three different types of lichen - the dangly ones (circled in green and red) are easiest to see.  The more delicate one, circled in green is an Usnea species.  There are different ones but they all look pretty similar and are called beard lichens. There are plenty growing around Newtonmore on Birch  trees or even fenceposts.

Usnea spp. and Ramalina fraxinea

The broader one, circled in red, is Ramalina fraxinia, or the Leafy Ash lichen, though it grows on other trees apart from Ash. If you walk down Newtonmore Main Street it grows on a few ornamental trees in people's gardens, and it likes Sycamores rather than Birch or Pine.

The next type of lichen is formed of little leaves that are attached to the bark, like the ones circled in blue and white at the right hand end.

Parmelia sulcata

Lichens reveal more and more when you look at them closely, so some form of magnification really helps you enter their tiny world. I have a hand lens (x10) and a clip on macro lens for my phone which is how the closeup photos are taken. The blue-grey leafy lichen is Powdered Crottle (Parmelia sulcata). You can see a powdery surface breaking out from the lobes (leaves).  This is a mini package of the lichen which can spread it to other areas.

Another leafy lichen is the yellow one, circled in  - yellow.

Xanthoria parietina

This one is really common and stands out well.  It has one scientific name (Xanthoria parietina) but plenty of other names as everyone seems to make up their own name: Yellow Crotal, Yellow Wall lichen and even the rather fanciful Maritime Starburst Lichen. It can look greenish when wet or out of the sun.  The yellow colour is a chemical that acts as a sunscreen.  It has grown tiny circular structures (they are called apothecia and are important characteristics if you want to try and ID a lichen). Their function is to produce spores - lichens are in part a fungus and spores are how fungi reproduce.

The final kind of lichen is called a crustose lichen.  This has no leaves at all, just a powdery coating on the bark, but they can also produce those fruiting bodies I called apothecia.  In fact, they are essential to look at if you want to have a hope of naming the lichen.

Jam tarts on two different crustose lichens

One name for these structures is "jam tarts" as they can have an outer rim of one colour (the pastry) and and the inside can be a different colour (the jam).  I am not at the stage where I can name these ones other than to say they are in the group called Lecanora. 

So much to look at in just 15cm(6 inches) of twig.  And I haven't even told you about some of the other lichens!

Anyone for jelly?

 I ventured further afield this week, outside the usual 5 mile advice,  as my husband had to go to the dentist in Aviemore, which gave me an opportunity to go for a walk and lichen hunt.  It was a lovely sunny day, though icy underfoot, and while walking by Milton Burn the sun shone through these strange translucent jellies on a dead sycamore.

Amber jelly fungus

With some help from more knowledgeable friends (thank you,  Audrey), it got a name: Amber Jelly Fungus (Exidia recisa). During dry spells, it shrivels up and is hard to see

 but during wet weather it swells up, and becomes these lovely see-through jewels which dangle from the branches of dead trees. There was a lot of it.

Apparently, it is edible, though I don't think I'd be that keen, and I would have to add the disclaimer that I don't advise anyone to try eating it on my recommendation! But it was a lovely find when there wasn't much else to look at.

An exciting find

 I will tell you a tale of why it is so rewarding to record wildflowers and how it can give a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. (I will save the story of how I got around to recording for another post...)

In 2017, I had started looking closely at plants in Newtonmore and trying to identify them. One day I found a plant I had never seen before, flowering in a drainage ditch in a field near Newtonmore Golf Course.  It had small white flowers which looked a bit like an umbellifer (the Cow Parsley family).  However, instead of having  the flowers at the end of the stem, they stuck out at the side. Rather odd.

 I looked it up in my Wild Flower Key and thought it might be Fool's-water-cress (Apium nodiflorum). However, according to the records, it did not grow around here, indeed, the nearest record was near Elgin or in Drumnadrochit.  I asked for help from more experienced botanists (in this case Andy Amphlett and Ian Green), sending them some photos. I was delighted to find they also thought it was Fool's-water-cress, and Andy came down to have a look and confirm it. We found it all along the ditch and the stream that flows along the edge of the lower golf course by the railway.  So much of it, that it was surprising that no-one had noticed it before.  

Distribution of Apium Nodiflorum records

 Above is a BSBI map showing all their records of where Fool's-water-cress grows. As you can see from the map, it is common in England but quite rare in Scotland. The green square marked with an arrow is Newtonmore. I felt very chuffed that now there was an extra blob on the map that was all mine!  Although it is called Fool's-water-cress, I have never seen real water-cress growing in Newtonmore so if you see something similar, it is likely to be Fool's-water-cress.

Here are a few tips for recognising it.  

This is what the leaves look like close-up

It grows in the water, and is evergreen, so you can see the leaves at the moment (January) quite clearly in the golf course stream.

Fool's-water-cress in the stream - it grows in a tangled mess.

It flowers quite late in the year, in July and August:

If you pick a stem and break it, it smells just like parsnips!

It is easy to see where it grows just now, so it is worth going to have a look. And, who knows, you might find something no-one else has noticed yet! Let me know if you do.

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?