If you visit a place or places day after day, year after year, you get to know what grows in those places, and that is how I have come to know so many lichens-because I visit them regularly. At this time of year people often think that once the leaves fall there isn’t anything colorful left to see, but that simply isn’t true. Lichens like the common goldspeck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) in the above photo are here year round for us to enjoy, and once the leaves fall many lichens become even easier to see. Look for this crustose lichen on stone. Crustose lichens form crusts that tightly adhere to the substrate that they grow on and can’t be removed without damaging it.
Bubblegum lichen (Icmadophila ericetorum) gets its name from its bright, bubblegum pink fruiting bodies (apothecia.) I find this crustose lichen growing in large patches on acid, sandy soil in full sun along with blueberries and sweet fern. It is uncommon and I knew of only two places where it grew. One of those places has been destroyed by logging however, so now there is only one place I know of to find it.
Note: Bob Klips has identified this lichen as Dibaeis baeomyces rather than Icmadophila ericetorum. One of the differences between the two is the length of the stalks that the apothecia sit on. They are longer on Icmadophila ericetorum than they are on Dibaeis baeomyces. Thank you Bob, for the help! If you haven’t visited Bob blog, “Bob’s Brain on Botany,” you should. It’s a real treat and you can find it at bobklips.com
Script lichen looks just like its name suggests but it is a very ancient script, like long forgotten runes. This is another crustose lichen but I find it growing on tree bark rather than stone or soil. The dark “script” characters are its fruiting bodies. There are many script lichen species and each seems to prefer a certain species of tree. I think this example is the common script lichen (Graphis scripta) which prefers smooth barked trees like maple.
One of my favorite lichens is the poplar sunburst lichen ((Xanthoria hasseana). Its fruiting bodies are disc like structures that remind me of orange octopus suckers. This seems to be a perpetually fruiting lichen which hasn’t stopped since I found it about two years ago. It has grown though, and now a little bigger than a quarter. I think it is one of our more beautiful lichens found in this area. This is a foliose lichen that grows on tree bark, but I’ve never found it on a poplar. Foliose lichens are lobed and leaf like.
Pixie cup lichens (Cladonia pyxidata) look like tiny golf tees or trumpets, and they are also called trumpet lichens. They are common and I almost always find them growing on the sides of rotting tree stumps, often with British soldier and common powder horn lichens (Cladonia coniocraea.) Common powder horn is, curiously, not horn shaped. They are the taller structures in this photo. Pixie cups are squamulose lichens, which means they are scaly, but they are also foliose, or leafy.
When I first found this beautiful little scattered rock posy lichen (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) a few years ago it could have sat on a penny with room to spare, but now it has reached quarter size. The orange pad shaped parts are its fruiting bodies (Apothecia,) and the grayish, brain like part is the body (thallus) of this relatively uncommon foliose lichen. By measuring the rate of growth of lichens scientists can get a fairly accurate estimate of how old the rocks are that the lichens grow on. This is known as lichenometry.
Smokey eye boulder lichen is another favorite of mine. The blue color seen in the above photo is caused by the way light reflects off a waxy coating on the fruiting bodies, which is very similar to the “bloom” found on plums, blueberries, and grapes. In addition to blue it can also appear black or gray depending on which direction the light happens to be coming from. The greenish-gold background color is the color of the body (thallus) of this crustose lichen.
Crustose rock disk lichens (Lecidella stigmatea) look a lot like tile lichens (Lecidea tessellate,) but tile lichens have black fruiting bodies that are sunken, or concave, and rock disk lichens have black fruiting bodies that are raised or flat. These lichens are very common on rocks of all kinds and grow in full sun.
Granite firedot lichens (Caloplaca arenaria) have a gray body (Thallus) and dark orange fruiting bodies (Apothecia,) but the fruiting bodies are so crowded that it’s often hard to see the gray thallus. This is another crustose lichen that doesn’t mind growing on granite in full sun.
Golden moonglow lichens (Dimelaena oreina) can get quite big but I usually find them at dime to quarter size. They grow in groups in full sun on granite and often grow quite close together. The examples in the above photo were fruiting, and that is something I don’t see them do very often. Their apothecia are the dark, cup shaped bodies in the centers of the examples shown. I’ve never been able to find out why so many lichens seem to release their spores so late in the year.
I showed toadskin lichen (Lasallia papulosa) in a recent post and quite a few people seemed interested in it, so I thought I’d show it again here and go into a little more detail. This lichen is very similar to rock tripe lichen (Umbilicaria mammulata) and if it wasn’t for all of the warts it would look very much like it. The warts are called pustules and on the back of the lichen there is a corresponding pit for every pustule. When wet the greenish color of the algae that is present comes through on the surface. The black dots are its fruiting bodies. Each lichen is attached to the rock at a single point that looks much like a belly button, so this is an umbilicate lichen.
When wet toadskin lichens are rubbery and pliable and feel much like your ear lobe but when they dry out they are much like a potato chip, and will crack just as easily. Like many lichens they also change color when they dry out, and turn kind of ashy gray like the example in the above photo. Toadskin lichens are also some of the hardest to find-I’ve only seen them growing on hilltop boulders.
However since most lichens grow on trees, soil, rocks, stumps and logs they’re virtually everywhere you go. Many are quite small though, so you have to walk slowly and look closely to find them. Once you’ve seen a few you’ll start seeing them almost everywhere you go. I know of a few that grow on trees right in the heart of downtown Keene.
The trees are coming into their winter bareness; the only green is the lichen on their branches.
~Verlyn Klinkenborg
Thanks for coming by.
Found some of the Bubblegum Lichen like in the second picture in my backyard. Not sure whether to keep or not now.
I’d keep any lichen that grew in my yard. They are an important part of the workings of a forest and yours is a very unusual one.
Great blog, really like your photos with commentary. I wish I could see as many lichens around here in southern England.
Thank you Martin. I know from reading blogs from British writers that you do have some beautiful lichens there. Of course, I can’t know how many you have but I’ve been amazed by the ones that I’ve seen. Have you seen the British Lichens website? In not it’s worth a look: http://www.britishlichens.co.uk/pictureindex.html
Great post. I enjoy finding different lichens but I have never seen most of the ones in your post. They may be hard to identify but they are beautiful.
Thanks! I think a lot of the lichens that grow here probably grow there but not all of them. I’ve also seen some on UK blogs that I’ve never seen here. They really are beautiful and always worth looking for.
Enjoyed reading this and am happy to be back in business thanks to a kind blogger who sorted me out.
Thank you Susan. I didn’t know that you were having problems. I’m glad that you were able to sort it all out. Bloggers can be very helpful!
Cool pictures, I like the sunburst lichen the best! 🙂
Thanks Michael. That’s one of my favorites too.
Wow, you keep finding all those interesting lichens, some of these I’ve seen before, but most are new to me. Or, it could be that you’ve posted photos of them before, but I just don’t remember them. 😉
Either way, with fewer insects and flowers to photograph, I’ve been looking for more mosses, fungi, and lichens to shoot, I’ve found a few, but not many, and I can’t ID any of them. Your post do prompt me to look though, and I do enjoy finding them, when I’m not chasing birds. 😉
Thanks Jerry. I think I have posted most of these before but I thought people needed a reminder that there are other things to see beside foliage at this time of year. Lichens can be very hard to identify but finding them and trying can be a lot of fun.
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays.
Thank you Agnes.
You’re very welcome, Allen. Namaste
I love these photos and your narrative. I also admire the knowledge of lichens that you have! Amazing organisms.
Thanks Montucky! If it wasn’t for my lichen book I wouldn’t be able to do posts like this. I’m learning but lichens can be very difficult to identify. They are amazing though, and very interesting.
Very nice. I am trying to learn lichens. Is there any chance that what you call Icmadophila ericetorum is in fact Dibaeis baeomyces? It’s the hemispheric apothecia on stalks that makes me think so.
Thank you Bob. I’m trying to learn lichens as well, and have been for years now. It’s not easy-there seems to be very little information in print. I’ve read that the apothecia of Icmadophila ericetorum can be stalked, but are usually very short or non existent so I agree that this one is most likely Dibaeis baeomyces. Thanks very much for your help on the identification. I appreciate it and will update the post as soon as I can.
Thanks for the lichens refresher course. Granite is one stone we don’t have around here. Darn.
You’re welcome. It would be interesting to see if any of these lichens grow on the type of rock that you have.
I don’t remember specifics, but we do have a few that you do.
I must start cleaning my spectacles more carefully.
You’ve found some interesting lichens recently. The only fruiting pixie cups I’ve ever seen, for example.
I have been inspired by you to look a lot more carefully as I go about and I am very grateful for that.
I’m glad to hear it. I hope others have been inspired to get out there and look around.
Thanks for a fascinating post. I especially like the script and pixie cup lichens.
You’re welcome. I’m glad to hear that others find lichens as fascinating as I do.
These lichens are really beautiful! Thank-you for sharing your knowledge and photographs. It always amazes me that lichens would want to live on such a hard rock as granite.
You’re welcome Clare, and thank you. Not only do lichens live on rocks, they also have acids in them that break them down and eventually turn them into sand. People who clean the great cathedrals dread seeing lichens grow on the stained glass because the acids in them will etch it.
Amazing powerful organism!
Yes, they are.
Great post of something most of us past by without a second thought! I like your two favorites, but I also like the toadskin lichens.
Thanks Laura! I think just about everyone likes the toadskin lichens.
Wonderful piece, I still need to finish a second careful read. Want you to know that there is a large swath of the bubblegum lichen in Fitzwilliam, near Rockwood Pond. It is in an area known over the years as the Wheeler Lot. I haven’t been there in about 5 months, but will go back to check, as there has been some sand and gravel removal recently which may have affected them. Haven’t forgotten the steep cut on the tracks area near Rockwood, still plan to go.
Thank you. I’ve been wanting to go to that railroad cut too, but haven’t had a chance yet. I didn’t know that bubblegum lichens grew near Rockwood pond. I was just there about two weeks ago taking photos of the foliage. The photo in the blog of bubblegum lichens was taken near meetinghouse pond in Marlborough.
The bubblegum is in an area across the road from Rockwood, known locally as the Wheeler Lot. It has been a sand and gravel pit for years, dormant for a long time, but recently started up again. The lichens are in the open, on a gravelly hillside. I was blown away the first time I saw them. Is there a way to insert an image in this string? I found some very simple photos of them from 2012.
That’s funny, I’ve been to the pond several times but I’ve never noticed a gravel pit. Is it near the rail trail?
On a gravelly hillside is exactly where I’d expect to find this lichen, and I’d guess that there are blueberry bushes and mosses there too.
I don’t know of a way to insert a photo in a comment but you can email them to me by going up to the “contact me” tab and sending an email as you normally would. I’d like to see them.
Will do just that. The area is across the road from the parking spots near the pond. There is a metal swing gate across the road up the hill. The lichens are up, over and down the other side, above where the dirt road meets the power line coming down the backside of Little Monadnock.
Thank you for the directions. I might get up that way this weekend.
Amazing photos and information about something I take for granted! I am sad to hear that logging caused the loss of some. Hoping my logging isn’t having a negative impact on these beauties. Your quote at the end reminds us to look carefully at the world around us, even when the obvious colors have passed.
Thanks Martha. I think all logging has to have some impact on the surrounding landscape but a good skidder operator can minimize it with a little effort.
Lichens are easy to find once you know what to look for. They really are just about everywhere.
Fascinating post, Allen, with some amazing photos and lots of interesting factoids. In many cases, I feel almost like I am looking through a microscope. It appears that lichens grow in a lot of different places, but I must confess that I rarely notice them.
Thanks Mike. In a way you are looking through a microscope-my macros lens does a great job of magnifying small things. Lichens can be small but most are easily seen with the naked eye. The toadskin lichens for example are quite large and can be seen from a good distance. It’s really just a matter of training your eyes and brain to look for them.
Amazing pictures I can see some lovely inspiration for me from these…I see lots of textured embroidery and fabric…so sumptuous … 🙂
Thank you Sue. I’m glad that you do find inspiration from these lichens. They’re really beautiful things!