On the fourth of July at just after 7:00 am I started the climb up Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard. The sunshine hadn’t reached the trailhead yet so it seemed dark to the cameras.
There were many blueberries ripening there along the trail but they were small. So far, we’ve had a dry summer and since they are mostly water, they haven’t been able to plump up. There were lots of them though so if we get some rain, it’ll be a good year for blueberries.
Hay scented ferns had yellowing tips, meaning they were being stressed by dryness.
I was catching up to the sun. This was the first hike up this mountain in recent memory when I didn’t have to stop to catch my breath. I did stop to take photos of course, but the stopping wasn’t due to low lung power and that was encouraging.
Here in the meadow was where all of the sunshine was, and it was bright. I usually take this shot more to the left but that was impossible on this day. I think the light would have destroyed the sensor in my camera.
I could see cloud shadows on the distant hills. They’re something I’ve always loved to watch move over the land. What a beautiful morning it was. Just a little on the cool side made it perfect weather for climbing. I think it was 55 degrees F. when I started.
Mount Monadnock is the highest point in the region so no matter where you stand you are looking up at it, even if you’re standing on top of another mountain.
But I wasn’t at the top yet. I still had to negotiate the worst part of the trail. This leg has many stones and roots to trip over.
The state owns the 5 acres at the top of Pitcher Mountain and they tell you that, but I’d guess that about 99% of the people who pass this sign never see it.
There were potential blackberries but they were small and stingy like the blueberries. We really need to see some rain.
Orchard grass had bloomed itself out and now hung its head to drop its seeds.
Here was the final approach to the summit. The wide road finally becomes just a footpath.
There were lots of bush honeysuckles blooming along this section of trail. Not a true honeysuckle but a pretty splash of color just the same.
As I climbed the last few yards to the summit, I turned to take a photo of the ranger cabin and found that the sky had turned to milk. A strange light fell over everything for a time.
The views especially, were affected by the unusual light. I saw that the wind turbines over in Antrim were spinning as fast as I’ve ever seen them go, but I didn’t feel even a hint of a breeze.
I wasn’t happy when I got home and saw this photo on the computer. What? I said to myself, the sky didn’t look like that. And the shading on the hills isn’t right! All the grousing and whining I was doing reminded me of a quote by artist Justin Beckett that I’ve always liked very much. He said “I could paint these mountains the way they look, but that isn’t how I see them.” So true, and I had to laugh at myself. In the end the photo stayed just the way it was. Not what I saw, but reality instead.
Finally the milky sky passed and things were back to blue again. I was surprised to find that I had the entire summit all to myself on a holiday. For a while, anyhow; it wasn’t long before a gentleman about my age came up the trail. I told him that the only other time I’d had the summit to myself was in winter. In January two or three years ago was the last time, I believed. “You come up here in January?” he asked. “Isn’t it a little icy?” “It can be, yes.” I told him. “I’ve had to crawl up those last few yards on my hands and knees.” By the look on his face you’d have thought I had just told him that I was from the crab nebula. I should probably have just kept my mouth shut. Only another nature nut could understand someone clawing their way up a mountain in January. In any case it wasn’t long before I had the summit to myself again.
I could just make out the cuts for the ski slopes on what I believe is Stratton Mountain over in Vermont.
The view of the near hill is being blocked by growth. Every now and then someone, or a group of people, comes and cuts the undergrowth to restore the views. I like to see the near hill. It rises up out of the forest like an ancient burial mound.
The old dead birch was still standing. It has become like a landmark to me so when it falls, I’ll miss it.
The morning light turned some of the mountain cinquefoil flowers in this shot blue but they are actually white. This plant also called three toothed cinquefoil because of the three large teeth at the end of each leaf.
They’re also very small. Just about the size of an aspirin I’d guess, but though small they certainly aren’t dainty. They survive some nasty weather up here; everything from being coated in ice to baking in the sun.
Common goldspeck lichens cover the exposed bedrock of the summit beautifully. If you want to talk toughness, I can’t think of another living thing as tough as a lichen. Science says they are about as close to immortal as any earth-bound being can be. They’ve even survived the vacuum of space.
In all the years I’ve been coming up here I’ve never seen the depressions in the bed rock that I call the bird baths dry up. Even in the bad drought we had three years ago there was water in them but now, all but this one had dried up, and this one looked like was going fast. There were lots of small birds like chickadees and juncos in the bushes watching me, just waiting for me to leave so they could use it, so I didn’t hang around the area long.
The blueberries on the summit were ripening quickly but they were small. Pitcher Mountain is known for its blueberries and many people and families come to pick them each year.
I thought I saw a dragonfly on a fern but it was a tiny feather. I get fooled by feathers a lot but this one was worth being the fool for. I thought it was beautiful and I wished I had seen the bird that dropped it. It must have been beautiful as well.
And then it was time to go down. When I got here earlier, the first thing I saw was three college age men running down this trail at full tilt. I suppose they must have run up it first, and that would have been near the twilight of dawn. More power to them. I was young once, too. May they all lead long and healthy lives.
I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree, and a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling. ~Richard le Gallienn
To open this post I should let newer readers know that I’m not a lichen expert. Though I do make mistakes I try hard to be accurate when identifying them. I started doing lichen posts because I enjoyed seeing them and I thought you would, too. They’re easy to find because they grow virtually everywhere, and it’s nice to see their bright colors and unusual shapes in winter. Common goldspeck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) for instance, is a beautiful bright yellow, cheery lichen that grows on stone.
Many lichens produce spores as a means of reproduction and that’s what this one was doing when I saw it. The little round bits that sometimes look like the suckers on an octopus are called apothecia, and that’s where the action is. Many lichens, for reasons I don’t know, like to produce spores in winter, so this is a good time to look for them. This lichen in my experience doesn’t often have them, so I got lucky.
Peppered rock shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) also likes to grow on stone in full sun and I find a lot of them on old stone walls. They’re a good introduction to lichen study because their brown apothecia are large and easy to see without aid. Lichens are made up of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Technically their apothecia are “fungal reproductive structures, in which the fungus reproduces itself through the production of spores.”
My original thoughts for this post included finding lichens I hadn’t seen before, but then I thought no, I don’t want readers to have to find specific tree species or to have to climb a mountain to see these lichens so I stayed with more easily found lichens, like these pebbled pixie cups (Cladonia pyxidata) I saw growing right beside the road I was walking on. They like to grow on soil or rotting stumps and logs and though very small they grow in groups, so that makes them easier to see.
Though pixie cup lichens are squamulose they have fruticose fruiting structures called podetia. The parts that look like tiny golf tees are its podetia. “Podetia” describes a stalk like growth which bears the apothecia, or fruiting bodies. Some examples might have some almost microscopic reddish dots around the rim of the tiny cup, which are its apothecia. Finally, frucitose means a lichen has a bushy, vertical growth. Since this example has squamules even growing inside the tiny cups it must be a pebbled pixie cup lichen.
You might notice that some of these photos aren’t as sharp as they could be and that’s because I think I’ve worn out another camera. My little Olympus Stylus TG-870 has just about given up the ghost I think, so I’ve had to order a new camera. I hope you’ll bear with me while this issue irons itself out. I think this must be the fourth or fifth camera I’ve gone through in the nearly eleven years of doing this blog, but they have a rough time of it in the woods.
I reminded myself, by taking this photo of a candle flame lichen (Candelaria concolor,) that it is not a great idea to shoot the color yellow in full sun. But you can see the details, and that’s what matters. You should look for this lichen on the trees next time you go to a shopping center, because it is found on the bark of deciduous trees in open areas. From what I’ve seen it doesn’t mind car exhaust, which is unusual because most lichens are sensitive to poor air quality. Look for the bright color rather than size first. The example seen here was growing on an ash tree and was smaller than a penny.
I find what I believe are rosy saucer lichens (Ochrolechia trochophore) growing on smooth barked trees like maples, and I see them everywhere I go, winter and summer. In fact it’s safe to say that I probably see more of this pretty little lichen than any other. Its apothecia are not subject to cold or dryness, apparently, because they never seem to change. This particular lichen must produce huge amounts of spores.
Script lichens are a good example of how lichens can change according to the season. When I see them in summer, they look like barely noticeable gray spots on trees but in winter their apothecia start to show. The blackish lines are its apothecia, and long apothecia that look like a pair of lips are called lirellae. The grayish part is the body or thallus. This one is very common and easy to find in this area and I believe it is the common script lichen (Graphis scripta.)
Golden moonglow lichens (Dimelaena oreina) fooled me this year. I always thought they would only grow on smooth surfaces like stone benches or gravestones but this year I found them on some very rough stone. This is a pretty lichen that I’ve read can get quite large but I’ve never seen one more than an inch or two across. They don’t seem to change color when they dry out like many other lichens do. This one was producing spores and that’s something I don’t see this lichen do very often.
Scattered rock posy lichens (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) like to grow on old stone walls in full sun, but I’ve also found them on mountain tops. Years ago I found a beautiful example on a gravestone and never found another anywhere else. Now I see them everywhere I go so it shows me that I have to train my eyes to see the very small.
And this example was very small indeed. The orange pad like structures are its apothecia and the roundish gray bits are its body, which in this case are called squamules. What you see here would have easily fit on a penny with plenty of room to spare. Next time you’re near a stone wall take a close look. You might be surprised by what you see.
Sidewalk firedot lichen (Caloplaca feracissima) is a pretty, bright colored lichen that gets its common name from the way it grows on concrete sidewalks. It is a lime lover and concrete sidewalks have lime in them, so when you find it in a stone wall it’s a fair bet that the stone it grows on has limestone in it too. This stone, my favorite “go to” stone to see this lichen, is almost completely covered by it. What is a bit odd about it is how this is the only stone in this wall like it.
A closer look at the sidewalk firedot lichen showed how it is another lichen made up of tiny specks, some of which are its dry apothecia. They are very small so you really need a loupe or a macro lens to see them clearly.
Another of my favorite lichens is the star rosette (Physcia stellaris) because when you look at it you often find that it appears to be looking back, with its big, dark apothecia. But they aren’t always dark; sometimes they’re gray and sometimes they appear more blue than gray. That’s because though they are actually dark brown, they have a powdery wax coating that can cause their color to change depending on the light. Plant parts with this powdery waxy coating are said to be pruinose and a good example of it is the “bloom” on blueberries, grapes, plums, and other fruit. On this day this example’s apothecia didn’t appear to have any pruinose coating at all.
Here was an example that illustrates how a lichen can change due to weather or even over time. That’s why it’s best, when you find some that interest you, to look at them every now and then in different weather conditions to see how they change. Some might not change at all but many do.
The tufted ramalina lichen (Ramalina americana) has a green body (thallus) with flattened strap like branches and white fruiting bodies (apothecia.) They are very susceptible to air pollution and many have died off but oddly, I find them growing in a parking lot surrounded by cars. I’m not sure what that means but generally lichens are a good indicator of air quality. If you see a lot of them in your area that most likely means that your air quality is good.
If you see a tree that looks as if someone threw a bucket of white paint at it you could be seeing a whitewash lichen (Phlyctis argena.) On the other hand, you could be seeing a white fungus called the white stain fungus (Julella fallaciosa.) That’s where looking closely comes in; if you see what look like small black dots or rings in the white field, it is most likely the fungus. Neither the fungus or the lichen will hurt the tree. Just think of them as birds that have found a good place to perch, because that’s all they’re doing.
This tree had me baffled. I thought it was covered with some kind of lichen but I had never seen one this color envelops an entire tree before, so I had to send the photos to my friend who wrote a book on lichens. Not surprisingly he knew right off what it was.
A photo of the tiny, almost invisible apothecia helped with his identification.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when he said that it was my old friend the maple dust lichen (Lecanora thysanophora,) because every one I had seen previously looked like the one in this photo. He said that the individual thalli (the bodies) of these lichens can grow together to cover large swaths of a smooth tree trunk. This is especially true on young maple trees with very smooth bark, which of course is what this young tree was. Lichens always find a way to amaze me, no matter how many of them I see.
This lichen was going to appear here as a mystery lichen but at the last moment I sent photos to my lichen identifying friend and he came back with Ropalospora viridis which has no common name. Since that was the one I had chosen out of his book I was happy to have the confirmation. Lichens can be tough to identify but as I’ve said here so many times before, you don’t have to know its name or even that it is a lichen to appreciate its beauty. That is the most important part; just being aware of and enjoying the beauty that is all around you.
This lichen doesn’t have apothecia. Instead it has bright, lime green soredia, which are tiny balls of cells that break off and start new lichens. Many lichens have asexual means of reproduction and this is one of those. It’s a pretty little thing that I’m sure will be hard to miss now that I’ve seen it.
There is always at least one unknown in my lichen folder and this is today’s example. At first I thought the ghostly white circle on a tree was the fringe of a maple dust lichen, but where was the rest of the lichen? Then I thought it might be slime flux, which is a weeping wound on a tree also called bacterial wet wood. It looks like a wet stain running down the bark and can be white, black, orange, brown and other colors. I’ve been aware of it and have seen it on various trees throughout my life but I’ve never seen what it looks like when it just starts, and I wondered if that was what I was seeing here. In any event both I and my lichenologist friend are baffled by this one, so if you happen to know what it is, we’d really love to hear about it.
I hope you’ll look at and enjoy the lichens in your area. You won’t have to look hard because they are literally everywhere.
For anyone interested here is the ordering information for the lichen book I’ve been speaking of throughout this post. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get it to you in the original post.
From the tiniest grain of sand to the large sun in the sky, all are here to teach us. ~Pam Torres
As I always do at this time of year, I went to visit Pitcher Mountain over in Stoddard. I got there so early in the morning the mist was still in the trees. The mountain was named after the Pitcher family who settled here in the 1700s, and from the treeless summit you have a full 360-degree view. The views are almost always good but when the trees have changed into their fall colors it can be beyond beautiful.
I was surprised to see that the oaks had already turned.
And the beeches as well. This was not what I expected. Obviously fall was moving faster up here than it was down in the lower elevations.
The trail was thick with fallen maple leaves, and all of these signs told me that I was probably too late to see peak color on the summit but no matter; up we go.
It was early morning and the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the forest was beautiful and I had nowhere to be, so what I might find on the summit didn’t concern me.
I had to stop at one point and say hello to a pretty little haircap moss growing beside the trail.
I wanted to see if the moss had produced any spore capsules and it had, as this photo shows. When young the female spore capsule of a haircap moss is covered by a cap called a calyptra which protects it. You can’t see it in this photo because it has fallen off already, but it is very hairy and this is what gives this moss part of its common name. Eventually as the capsule ages it moves from vertical to a more horizontal position and the calyptra falls off. The spore capsule continues to ripen after the calyptra comes off and when the time is right the beaked end cap or lid called the operculum will fall off and release the spores to the wind. As it ages the spore capsule changes from round to four cornered but not quite square, as seen here. I would guess by looking at it that the end cap was nearly ready to fall off. I’ve taken them off before so I could see the tiny, dust like spores. There were so many I wondered why every bit of ground on this planet wasn’t covered in haircap moss.
An Indian cucumber root plant (Medeola virginiana) surprised me by still having berries. They are usually snapped up quickly, by turkeys I believe, since I have accidentally scared the birds away from them when trudging through the woods.
There were lots of clouds in the sky but it was still a beautiful, if cool fall day.
When I turned around and looked back at the way I had come, I could see lots of color.
There was plenty of color along the trail as well. The many bright red blueberry bushes were beautiful.
And so were the blackberry bushes.
And there was the ranger cabin. I wondered who it was that carried all the materials up here to build it years ago. If you unlock the gate down below you can drive to a point but the last few hundred yards would have required hand carrying because of all the rocks and the steepness of the grade. The trail is only one person wide too, so it must have been quite a job. It’s a shame that it isn’t being maintained.
It has always looked to me that there used to be an apple orchard up here and though the trees no longer bear they’re still here. I was surprised to find spring beauties, one of our most beautiful spring wildflowers, growing under this tree one year.
I’ve read that the fire tower is manned when the fire danger is high and I’ve seen people in it but normally it is empty. One day when I was up here they let all the families go up into it, but I kept my feet on the ground. I don’t get along well with heights and I would imagine it must sway a bit in the wind.
Once I reached the summit I saw that I had indeed waited too long to make this pilgrimage, because almost all of the blueberries and other bushes had lost their leaves. They add a lot to the beauty of the place but they aren’t all there is to see. I like cloud shadows, and I had plenty of them to watch. I also had the whole place to myself for a time.
The quality of color depended on which direction you turned. There was quite a lot of close color looking this way. If the blueberries still had their leaves though, it would have been even better.
All the leafless bushes seen here are blueberries and that’s why Pitcher Mountain is known for its blueberry picking. Entire families come from all over to pick. I’ve sat here during blueberry picking season and heard voices coming from out there among the bushes without ever seeing a soul. You hear voices saying things like “This bush is loaded!” or “I need another bucket!” and you wonder, where are they?
I wanted to show you what I call the near hill but it was completely under a cloud shadow, so I sat and waited. At one point, and I think that moment is in this photo, every part of the landscape all around the hill was in full sunshine, but the hill remained dark. I like a challenge so I thought I’d just wander around and wait. By that time the summit was crowded with families. I was happy to see lots of children up here.
While I waited, I wandered over to the bird baths. Since it had rained the night before I wasn’t surprised to see them full. In fact I’ve never seen the biggest one dry, even in drought. I have seen birds bathing in it though.
Something I’ve never seen is a puddle on this part of the summit, but here was a big one. Big enough for the wind to ripple it in fact, and how the wind did blow. It actually moaned and howled through the stairs on the fire tower and two or three of the smallest children cried, afraid the wind would blow them off the mountain. Though I didn’t say anything to the parents their fear was justified; I’ve been almost blown over by big gusts a few times while up here. I was glad their parents were there to comfort them and I was also glad that that I had worn a jacket.
I discovered that mountain cinquefoil (Potentilla tridentata) turns yellow in the fall. If you’re patient all the answers will come.
I returned to view of the near hill several times but all I got was an occasional glimpse before the clouds closed in again. I played this game for over an hour and each time i took a look the break in the clouds quickly closed in again. I became determined that I would get a photo of the hill in full sunshine, so I waited and did some more wandering.
Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) looked like someone had spilled egg yolk all over the rocks. They and other lichens grow profusely up here.
This crustose lichen is very granular and is often busy producing spores, but I didn’t see any of its fruiting bodies (apothecia) on this day. These lichens were once used to dye wool in Sweden but I still wonder how they got them off the rocks. Crustose lichens usually can’t be removed from the substrate they grow on without damaging it in some way, so maybe a chisel was used. It must have been quite a job.
Scattered rock posy lichens (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) also grow in great numbers here. The pale orange pad shaped parts are its fruiting bodies (Apothecia,) and the grayish, broken looking part is the body (thallus) of this relatively common lichen. A few years ago I thought they were rare until I started finding them on rocks almost everywhere I went.
Finally the clouds parted and I was able to see what I had been waiting for. There was a surprising amount of color still on the near hil but also a lot of bare trees. My guess would be that all the color comes from oaks and beeches rather than maples. In any event I’m happy that I am able to show it to you. Now that I had the shot, I could go back down to a less windy, flatter place.
You don’t have to wait until you get to the top of a mountain to enjoy the view. ~ Eleanor Brownn
I’ve left lichens alone up to this point this year because of the drought. Lichens, to be at their best photogenically at least, need rain and when they don’t get it they can change their appearance sometimes quite dramatically. Some lichens however, like the common goldspeck lichens seen above, seem to change very little no matter what the weather.
Common goldspeck lichens are very pretty and grow on stone. These examples were growing on 200 year old slate headstones in a cemetery, which is a great place to find lichens.
Not surprisingly when you get close enough you find that common goldspeck lichens look like tiny gold specks. This one happened to be producing spores and you can see that by the little round things that look like octopus suckers scattered here and there. They are the lichen’s apothecia and they are very rarely seen on this lichen. If you took a common pin and poked it through a piece of paper and then looked through the hole you’d have a fairly good idea of the size of most of those little specks.
Another rock loving lichen is the sidewalk firedot lichen (Caloplaca feracissima,) so called because it is a lime lover and grows on concrete sidewalks, which have lime in them. When you see it in a stone wall it’s a fair bet that the stone it grows on has limestone in it too. This stone is almost completely covered by it.
A closer look at the sidewalk firedot lichen showed how it is another lichen made up of tiny specks, some of which are its dry fruiting bodies (apothecia).
I wanted this post to be about showing you how lichens can change their appearance, and one that illustrates this well is the star rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris). This is how it might appear when it is very dry, with apothecia that appear very gray. The apothecia of this lichen are actually dark brown but they have a powdery wax coating that can cause their color to change depending on the light. Plant parts with this powdery waxy coating are said to be pruinose and a good example of it is the “bloom” on blueberries, grapes, plums, and other fruit. The coating reflects light and protects what it coats from the sun. Depending on the angle of the light these apothecia can appear blue, gray, brown or black. That’s why it pays to visit lichens several times.
Here, in a photo taken previously, the star rosette lichen’s apothecia appear blue-gray and that could be either because of the light or the fact that it had rained recently when this photo was taken.
The only thing that seems to change about this lichen is the amount of apothecia it has. On this very dry day it still had so many you could barely see its body (thallus). I believe it is a Powdery sunburst (Xanthomendoza ulophyllodes) lichen, which is very pretty. Unfortunately it is also relatively rare in this area. I’ve only found it on two or three trees in one location. This one is about 3/4 of an inch across.
Here is the same powdery sunburst lichen that appeared in the previous photo, but this is what it looked like three years ago. It clearly illustrates why, if you’re going to study lichens, you need to visit them several times over a period of time if you would know them well.
Pink earth lichen (Dibaeis baeomyces) is one that I have seen no changes in whatsoever after several years, This pretty little lichen closely resembles bubblegum lichen (Icmadophila ericetorum.) One of the differences between the two is the length of the stalks that the plump pink apothecia sit on. They are longer on bubblegum lichens than they are on pink earth lichens. Both are beautiful things that are rarely seen in this area. The whitish thallus, or body of the lichen, grows on soil; usually on dry acidic soil near blueberry and sweet fern plants. It can sometimes have a bluish cast as well.
Scattered rock posy lichen (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) is both beautiful and unusual with its brain like body and orange fruiting bodies. This lichen’s orange apothecia can disappear when it is dry so I was surprised to find them this time. This one was growing on stone in full sun. This lichen is fairly common and I find it both on mountain summits and in the lowlands.
The golden moonglow lichens (Dimelaena oreina) that I see are usually about an inch across but they can get much bigger. The ones I know grow in full sun on granite and don’t seem to change color when they dry out like many other lichens do. This one was producing spores and that’s something I don’t see this lichen do very often. This was an odd example because it had another foliose lichen growing in its center. If you spend much time in cemeteries you have probably seen this pretty lichen, because it seems to like growing on smooth, polished stone, especially granite. It is a crustose lichen and crustose lichens are very determined, so removing it from a gravestone would be a challenge. When lichens grow on glass the acids in them can actually etch the glass and this is a problem in the big European cathedrals, especially. I would think the same would be true for polished stone.
Rosy saucer lichens (Ochrolechia trochophore)seem toprefer growing on smooth barked trees but some like this one don’t seem to care and will form themselves to whatever shape the bark they grow on happens to have. I probably see more of this pretty little lichen than any other. It’s apothecia are not subject to cold or dryness, apparently; they are visible in winter or summer.
Peppered rock shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) likes to grow on stone in full sun and I find a lot of them on stone walls. They’re a good introduction to lichen study because their brown apothecia, where their spores are produced, are large and easy to see without aid. Lichens are made up of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Technically apothecia are “fungal reproductive structures, in which the fungus reproduces itself through the production of spores” This is not the only way that lichens reproduce, but it is common and the apothecia are often beautiful and well worth watching for.
Here is a closer look at those apothecia. Note the different shades and shapes, all on the same lichen. They wrinkle up a bit when dry.
Dog or pelt lichens will grow on soil, rotting wood, or stone as this one was. The example pictured is I believe, the scaly pelt lichen (Peltigera praetextata), and I arrived at that identification only with the help of a lichen expert. These lichens are associated with mossy areas because the mosses provide the moisture that they need. Since there are about 100 species of foliose lichens in the family Peltigeraceae they can be tough to pin down. It is a foliose lichen because it is lobed, or leaf like. The upper part of the body (Thallus) is undulating or veined in this case. This lichen is large and easy to see. It is also probably quite old.
What sounds most plausible to me about the origin of the name “dog lichen” are the white “roots” on the white underside of the lichen body. They are fang like and called rhizines. On some lichens they can be quite bushy, and on others they are narrow and thin. They are one of the identifying characteristics of dog or pelt lichens, so you should always try to get a look at them if you can. Often the edges of the lobes will curl up, revealing them. In this area these are relatively rare. I’ve seen them only in two places.
It originally took me quite a while to figure out what this lichen might be called but its green body (thallus) with flattened strap like branches and white fruiting bodies (apothecia) led me to finally settle on the tufted ramalina lichen. Then my lichen expert friend told me that it is now known as Ramalina americana. A lichen guide from 1902 says this lichen is “very common in New England” but I had never seen it. My knowledgeable friend tells me that is because it was nearly wiped out by pollution, and that tells me that our air here in New Hampshire must be very clean. If you see lots of lichens where you live it’s probably fair to assume the same.
Here is a closer look at the Ramalina lichen’s apothecia. They’re very different from most lichens I see.
Leafy (foliose) lichens that look like this can be difficult to identify but I believe this one is the fringed wrinkle lichen (Tuckermanopsis americana). They are one of the easiest to find because they fall from the trees and litter the ground on virtually any trail you follow in this area. They can be difficult to identify because they change color so readily. I’ve seen them even look pure white when very dry. This one was found on a rainy day so I know its colors are true. The brown, roundish bits with dots (pycnidia) around the edges are its apothecia, and they can be very pretty. This could also be the variable wrinkle lichen (Tuckermanopsis orbata), which is a good name for a very pretty but variable lichen.
A lichen common to stone walls is the sulfur dust lichen (Chrysothrix chlorina.) It’s very yellow and hides under overhangs so it doesn’t get rained on. At least I think that’s why I always find it tucked away like this, but this is odd behavior for a lichen because they usually like a lot of rain and sunshine. It seems as if this one would rather have water run down the stone to it than have raindrops land directly on it. Sulfur dust lichens are kind of granular in texture. If you’re lucky you can sometimes find them with fruiting bodies (apothecia) but more often than not I see them when they aren’t producing spores.
NOTE: My lichenologist friend has pointed out that the correct scientific name for this lichen should be Psilolechia lucida, which is also called sulfur dust lichen. Apparently Chrysothrix chlorina is quite rare in this area.
Some lichens, like the script lichen show above, seem to only produce spores when the weather is cold. Though there are apothecia on this lichen you can barely see them; in the summer you can look at trees that are covered with script lichens and see nothing but grayish white spots on the bark.
But in the winter script lichens come to life and will be covered with squiggly “script” which can often be very beautiful. This is why one of my favorite times to go lichen hunting is in the fall and winter months. Lichen study is not a sprint, it’s a marathon that can sometimes take years to run if you want the medal. Once you become interested in lichens, you’ll find interest and pleasure on every rock, tree and fencepost you see for many years to come.
Smokey eye boulder lichens (Porpidia albocaerulescens) are one of the most beautiful lichens of all in my opinion, but their beauty is fleeting and it depends on how the light happens to fall on them. If you find one it might not look like this one at all. The pretty golden brown body (thallus) of the lichen is peppered with blue apothecia which are colored by the light due to their waxy coating. Take a look at the next photo to see what a simple change in light can do.
This is the exact same lichen we saw in the previous photo; all that is different is the light, and that’s why if you’re at all interested in lichens you really should visit them at different times of year and in different weather. The previous photo was taken when sunlight was falling on it, and this shot was taken when the lichen was in shade. Not only light but dryness can affect the color of many lichens, so make a note of where you find them and then go back when the weather has changed. I think you’ll be amazed by how much they can change, and also by how beautiful they can be.
Here is a lichen that was a learning experience for both myself and my friend the lichen specialist, who just happens to be writing a book about lichens much like the one you see above. There are many things on this lichen that lead to its identity but what I want you to see are its apothecia, which grow in concentric circles and look like little bumps or hills. That would tell most people that this was a concentric boulder lichen but they’d be fooled, just as I was. This photo was taken just after a rain and this lichen was very wet.
Here is the lichen once it had dried. As you can see it has changed dramatically; those little bumps have become cup shaped, and that’s because when wet they swell up and close, and then open again when they dry out. This was a challenge to even a lichen expert so you shouldn’t feel disappointed if you can’t identify every lichen that you see. Some like this one are hard to identify without expert help. Its name is the dusky map lichen (Rhizocarpon reductum) and it will appear in my friend’s lichen book.
If you find yourself interested in lichens maybe you could start like I did; find a particular lichen and simply watch it; maybe on that tree in your yard, or on your daily walk, or at lunch time. They grow virtually everywhere and are not hard to find. So watch “your” lichen and see how it changes. See how different it appears in sun and shade, and when wet or dry. Think about how all of these changes have been going on right there in plain sight all this time without your knowing. This will make you a better student of nature; a better observer. Ask yourself well, if I have missed this, something so obvious, what else might I have missed? Then you will be amazed at what you begin to see.
It is those insignificant things, the things most of us pay no attention to like lichens, liverworts or mosses, that often tell the most about that part of the planet we live on. Lichens, or lack of them, speak about clean air or air pollution. Liverworts speak about clean water or water pollution and mosses speak about soil conditions. These creatures are like canaries in a coal mine and will give advanced warning of any abrupt changes in climate or increases in pollution. All of things on this earth have voices. Nature speaks, but only to those willing to listen, and you listen by simply being there.
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understanding and our hearts. ~William Hazlett
Last weekend was relatively dry, warm and sunny but there really was no humidity to speak of, so I decided to climb Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard. It’s an easy climb and that’s what I needed because my legs were telling me that the 18 years of age I felt in my mind applied only to my mind, and not to my legs. “Think young and be young” I remembered from somewhere, so up I went.
I saw a single orange mushroom on a log and though it looked like an orange mycena (Mycena leaiana) I’m not so sure that it was. It looked too pale and orange mycenas usually grow in groups, but I have read that the orange can wash out of this mushroom in a heavy rain, and it won’t grow in groups if it’s too dry. Mushrooms are 90-95% water and if it’s too dry they simply won’t grow.
The gills certainly looked right for an orange mycena as far as shape but the color doesn’t wash out of them and I thought they looked a little pale. I wonder if it wasn’t the fuzzy foot mushroom (Xeromphalina campanella,) which is similar.
In any event I couldn’t wonder about mushrooms all day so I continued up the trail to the meadow, which is a good spot to catch one’s breath. Since I live in a forest and work in a forest seeing a view like this is amazingly refreshing and expansive. I don’t see many like it.
From here on the trail gets very rocky so I always wear good hiking boots when I come here. It really seems to get worse each year but they have been working on parts of it.
The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is a native plant that you can quite literally find just about anywhere in this part of the state but especially on Pitcher Mountain, and people come from all over to pick them. I saw a few but most had already been picked.
There are two varieties of blueberry here on the mountain and this one is the native black highbush blueberry (Vaccinium fuscatum.) It has smaller fruit than that of the Vaccinium corymbosum highbush blueberry in the previous photo and is darker in color. Some say they are sweeter while some say the other highbush blueberries are sweeter. Though they are both native berries many people don’t want these berries because they seem to think that they aren’t blueberries, so most of them go untouched by the pickers. When I come up here in January I find them mummified by the thousands, still on the bushes. I’ve eaten many of both kinds and in my experience one isn’t any better or worse than the other, in my opinion.
Before I knew it I was at the old ranger station, which is another place I stop to catch my breath. Quite a while ago someone or something (like a bear) broke the boards off one of the windows so I thought I’d see if it had been repaired.
Someone had screwed a piece of plywood over the open window, so that should keep out whatever or whoever wanted to get in.
I felt lucky to have seen the inside of the place so I’ll post this photo of it once again. Chances are it’ll be a long time before I see it again, if ever. It was 1940s all the way and as we can see someone or something checked all the cupboards. A lot of card or cribbage playing probably went on at that 2 legged table. I grew up with one much like it but ours had 4 legs.
There is an old mountain ash tree (Sorbus americana) near the ranger station and it was loaded with ripening berries. Mountain ash is used ornamentally because of its white flowers in late spring and bright orange berries in the fall, but it is a native tree. Native Americans made a tea from the bark and berries of this tree to treat coughs, and as a pain killer. They also ate the died and ground berries for food, adding them to soups and stews. The berries are said to be very tart and have an unpleasant taste when unripe.
I always think of the fire tower on Pitcher Mountain a monument to irony because the original wooden tower built in 1915 burned in April of 1940, in the most destructive forest fire to ever strike this part of the state. Twenty seven thousand acres burned, including the tower and all of the trees on the summit.
I took a look at what I call the near hill. It rises like a great burial mound out of the forest. It is completely covered with forest, much like I’ve heard Pitcher Mountain once was. My question has always been: if the fire burned Pitcher Mountain down to the bedrock and killed all the vegetation why didn’t that happen on this hill? It isn’t that far away from this summit.
I could see the new wind farm over in Antrim if I pushed my camera to the limit of its zoomability. There were many more windmills than these three but I couldn’t fit them all in one photo.
I love seeing the shading on the blue hills from up here. If I had to choose between color and detail I’d have to choose color as what I’d rather see. I can imagine the details but I think it would be difficult to imagine the colors. Although now that I think about it since I have a certain amount of color blindness there is always a bit of imagination involved.
I was able to sit for a while and watch the cloud shadows move over the hills below. This is something I always liked to do as a boy and I still do.
What I call the birdbath had plenty of water in it. I didn’t see any birds splashing in it on this day but I have in the past.
The old tower tie downs reminded me of the tornado warnings we’d had just a few days before. These towers can stand some pretty terrible winds, I’d guess.
Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) grow profusely all over the bedrock up here. This crustose lichen is very granular and was once used to dye wool in Sweden, but I can’t imagine how they ever got them off the rocks. Crustose lichens usually can’t be removed from the substrate they grow on without damaging it in some way.
This is another view of the hazy distant hills.
A flower I’ve only seen here grows in the cracks in the rocks at the summit. Mountain white cinquefoil (Potentilla tridentata) is also called three toothed cinquefoil because of the three large teeth at the end of each leaf. The white 5 petaled flowers are small; maybe a half inch across on a good day. At a glance they could be mistaken for wild strawberry flowers but wild strawberries have yellow centers. These plants are said to bloom for 2 or 3 months and make an excellent choice for a sunny rock garden that doesn’t get too hot, because they don’t like heat. They must be struggling this summer because it has been hot. We’ve had a long string of mid-80 to 90 degree days.
The climb didn’t help my creaky legs any but that didn’t bother me because being on a mountaintop is something I’ve missed, and climbing is something I’ve never regretted doing. They call to you and they don’t stop calling until you climb, and then they are still for a while. But just a while.
The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived. ~Anonymous mountain climber.
Some people think that once the leaves have fallen there is nothing left to see outside until spring, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Lichens for instance, are there year round and unless you live in a place with poor air quality they are everywhere; on trees, on stones, on the ground, and even on buildings, roofs, windows, and sidewalks. They are like small jewels that have been sprinkled throughout nature. Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) for instance, are uncommonly beautiful. Look for this bright yellow crustose lichen on stone. It’s a very artistic lichen and I like the patterns that it makes. I see it on gravestones quite often.
It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that, at high magnification, the body of the common goldspeck lichen looks like it’s made up of tiny golden specks. The book Lichens of North America describe the body of this lichen as “little cushions of flattened granules.” This lichen is sometimes sterile, with no fruiting bodies present, but this one appeared to have a few. The bluish color in the background is the slate that it grows on.
This is an odd lichen with large white fruiting bodies (apothecia) that look like they just erupt anywhere on the body (thallus) but also look like they are stalked, depending how you look at them. Some are convex and some concave and some have rims and some don’t. The white apothecia and green body with flattened strap like branches tell me that it’s probably the tufted ramalina lichen (Ramalina fastigiata.) A lichen guide from 1902 says this lichen is “very common in New England” but I know of only one place it grows. It is apparently very sensitive to air pollution as many lichens are. If you live in a place with a lot of lichens, breathe happily.
Bright yellow fringed candle flame lichens (Candelaria fibrosa) will often cover entire tree trunks. It must like a lot of water because I see it a lot on the lower parts of trees that grow near irrigation systems, with trunks that are almost always wet in warmer months. Seen up close this lichen always reminds me of scrambled eggs. I call this the “downtown” lichen because I see it a lot there.
It’s interesting how nature seems to use the same shapes over and over again in different ways. The round fruiting cups, called apothecia, of the Poplar Sunburst Lichen (Xanthoria hasseana) remind me of the suckers on an octopus or squid. Instead of latching onto things however, this lichen uses its cups for spore production. To give you a sense of scale-the largest of those in the photo is about an eighth of an inch across. The entire lichen might have been an inch long.
This example was even smaller at about the size of a penny (.75”) and was more apothecia than thallus. Spore production is what it’s all about because that’s what ensures continuation of the species.
The apothecia on this star rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris) are a good example of how colors can change, even on the same lichen. This lichen has dark brown apothecia that are often pruinose. Pruinose refers to the white, waxy, powdery coating. You’ve no doubt seen examples of this waxy “bloom” on blueberries and plums. I’ve noticed by watching lichens that have pruinose apothecia that the coating can reflect light in different ways, sometimes appearing gray and at other times more blue, and sometimes even black. The apothecia on this lichen often show a range of colors, from brown to light blue. The way the sunlight strikes it has a lot to do with its colors.
I think this is the smallest example of a Cumberland rock shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia cumberlandia) that I’ve ever seen, but even at its tiny 1/2 inch size it was beginning to produce spores in its brown apothecia. This lichen likes to grow on boulders or other stone. The body (Thallus) is described as being “yellow-green to sometimes bluish green” and the fruiting discs (Apothecia) are “cinnamon to dark brown.” The body of this lichen always looks like someone dripped candle wax on the stone to me. This one was very symmetrical but they are usually asymmetrical.
Smokey eye boulder lichen apothecia (Porpidia albocaerulescens) are usually a smoky gray color, which is where their common name comes from, but they can also have a bluish tint because of the way their waxy (pruinose) coating reflects sunlight. In this case the body of the lichen is a grayish color but it can also be a brownish gold color. One of the things that can make lichen identification difficult is the ability of some lichens to change color in different light, and this is one that does that. It can look very different from just a few feet away. This is a crustose lichens and it forms a kind of crust on the substrate that it grows on. The bond between a crustose lichen and its substrate is so strong that it can’t be removed without damaging the substrate.
British soldier lichens (Cladonia cristatella) like to grow on damp wood like rotted stumps and logs, but I’ve found them on buildings, fence posts, and built up forest litter on boulders. At this time of year I don’t pass too many mossy old tree stumps without having a glance for British soldiers. Their bright red apothecia make them easy to see, even if you’re colorblind.
Shrubby little beard lichens are fruticose lichens, and fruticose lichens have upright or pendulous branches. I think this one is a bristly beard (Usnea hirta) but it might also be a young fishbone beard lichen. Though it grew on the shadier side of a tree it was caught in bright sunlight, and I’d guess that it must get an hour of sunlight a day. One way beard lichens reproduce is by fragmentation. Pieces break off and are carried by the wind or maybe animal fur to another spot to colonize. There are many of these high up in the trees and they come down, often still attached to the branch they grew on, during a good wind. I’ve found as many on the ground as I have on trees.
I’ve been trying to identify this beard lichen for years with no luck. Maybe it’s just a different colored example of the bristly beard seen previously?
Common greenshield lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata) is indeed very common. It’s a large lichen and colonies of them often grow big enough to cover entire trees. They often wrinkle like the example seen here. Like many lichens they change color, and go from grayish when dry to yellow green when wet. This example was dry. This lichen also taught me that many lichens prefer growing on the shady side of trees, presumably so the sun doesn’t dry them out quite so fast.
Hammered shield lichens (Parmelia sulcata) are on the rare side here but I see them occasionally, always on trees. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the deciduous tree they were on, this time but it was in a sheltered spot like the last tree I found them on. Hammered shield lichen is said to have a large variety of named varieties and forms, so it can be tough to pin down.
Hammered shield lichens are silvery gray and their many sharp ridges and depressions makes them look like they’ve been hammered out of a piece of steel. Fruiting bodies are said to be rare and I’ve never seen them. It is said to have powdery, whitish soredia but I’ve never seen them either. Soredia are tiny packages of both fungus and alga that break off the lichen. They are simply another means of reproduction.
I find pebbled pixie cup lichens (Cladonia pyxidata) growing on soil or rotting stumps and logs, and occasionally on stone. Pixie cups look like tiny golf tees or trumpets. They are squamulose lichens, and the golf tee shapes arise from leafy growths called squamules. A squamule is a lobe of the body of the lichen (thallus,) and squamulose lichens have small, leafy lobes like those at the base of this example. The cup is so small even a pea would seem huge in comparison.
Though pixie cup lichens are squamulose they have fruticose fruiting structures called podetia. The parts that look like tiny golf tees are its podetia. “Podetia” describes a stalk like growth which bears the apothecia, or fruiting bodies. This example has some almost microscopic dots around the rim, which are its apothecia. Finally, frucitose means a lichen has a bushy, vertical growth. Since this example has squamules even growing inside the tiny cups it must be a pebbled pixie cup lichen.
If you spend time walking along old stone walls eventually you’ll see a stone with a splash of bright orange on it and it will probably be the sidewalk firedot lichen (Caloplaca feracissima,) so called because it is a lime lover and grows on concrete sidewalks, which have lime in them. When you see it in a stone wall it’s a fair bet that the stone it grows on has limestone in it too. This stone is almost completely covered by it.
A closer look at this example of the sidewalk firedot lichen showed it was very dry. Lichens are at their best when they are wet because that’s when they’ll show their true colors and size, so that’s when serious lichen hunters look for them. A misty or drizzly day is perfect but we haven’t had one in a while.
Some lichens might look like they have little spiders on them, or maybe as if they had been carved with a pocket knife but no, the squiggly lines are the apothecia of the script lichen (Graphis scripta.) This lichen usually prefers trees with smooth bark so I was surprised to see it on this rough barked tree. From what I’ve seen they only produce spores in winter. You can walk right by a tree full of script lichens in summer and see only grayish spots with no apothecia at all. In fact many lichens seem to prefer winter for spore production and I’ve never been able to find out why.
Next time you find yourself walking outside after a rain I hope you’ll take the time to look a little closer at all those colored spots you’ll see on the trees, stones, soil, and even sidewalks. If you do a whole new world of nature study will open for you.
There is a low mist in the woods. It is a good day to study lichens. ~Henry David Thoreau
I like to see what the fall colors look like from above so each year I climb a hill or mountain to have a look. I’ve been climbing at Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard for a few years now because it’s a relatively easy climb and because it has a 360 degree view from the summit.
Beech trees are changing into their bright yellows down in the lower towns so I thought they’d be well along here. They were indeed, and if I went by the colors along the trail I guessed that I was going to see plenty of color at the summit.
A few months ago when I was here I noticed that someone had placed what they must have considered a special stone on to of a boulder. I was happy to see that people had thought enough of the person who put it there to leave it alone. When I first saw it I picked it up to look at it and almost tossed it into the woods but thankfully I realized it meant something to someone, so I put it back where I found it.
In May I saw a big black bear right here in the meadow, but on this day I saw Scottish highland cattle. These pastures are for them but I don’t see them here very often. I’m guessing that the scent of the bear was long gone, because they seemed to be at peace and didn’t even look my way.
With views like this who wouldn’t be at peace?
Up we go along the trail that parallels the pasture. I should say that good, sturdy hiking boots would be a good idea here. The trail gets very rocky and there are many tree roots.
An old apple tree along the trail bore a considerable crop of fruit. Pitcher Mountain gets its name from the Pitcher family, who settled this land in the 1700s, but I doubt this was anything they planted. It was an old tree but not that old.
I noticed that nobody had boarded up the open window on the ranger cabin yet, and that got me wondering how often forestry officials actually come up here.
I took another look at the 1940s interior. I don’t know if a bear got in here or not but something or someone had been foraging, by the looks of things.
In all the years I’ve been coming here I’ve seen someone in the fire tower just once, and that day they were letting people in. There was such a line waiting though, that I passed it up. This is considered a manned fire tower but I wonder when. It is possible that it’s only manned during times of high fire danger, I suppose.
There was plenty of fall color on the summit. The red of blueberry bushes and yellow of ferns made a beautiful scene, I thought.
There was a haze in the distance but you couldn’t beat the color nearby.
This shot shows the meadows where the highland cattle were from above.
There were lots of people up here on this day and most were either simply staring or taking photos. I did quite a lot of both because it was so beautiful.
There were lots of blueberry bushes that had lost their leaves but there were still lots of berries on them.
I took far too many photos but I think you can probably see why. It was just breathtaking up there.
It appears as just a speck in this photo but there was a dark eyed junco bathing in the water that collects in the natural depressions in this bedrock. That’s why I call them the birdbaths.
A tiger moth must have flown up here at some point because I saw a couple of wooly bear caterpillars on the summit.
The rocks of the summit are covered with many different lichens and I always try to stop and take a look at one or two of them.
On this day I chose common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) for a close up photo. Look for this bright yellow crustose lichen on stone, especially slate. I see it on older gravestones quite often and it grows by the thousands on some hill and mountain summits. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that, at high magnification, the body of the common goldspeck lichen looks like it’s made up of tiny golden specks. The book Lichens of North America describes the body of this lichen as “little cushions of flattened granules.” This lichen is sometimes sterile, with no fruiting bodies present, but these had a few. Crustose lichens form crusts that tightly adhere to the substrate that they grow on and usually can’t be removed without damaging it.
One last look at the colors on the summit.
I’ve often said here that I don’t climb for the view because if I did I’d be disappointed about 9 out of 10 times, but on this day I did climb for the view and I wasn’t disappointed. In fact I could have stayed up there all day but what goes up must come down and so I started back down the trail. Though I’m still 18 in my mind my body keeps interrupting that dream and one of my knees has been acting up lately, but I told myself that if a 5 year old, her grandparents and their dog could do it then so could I. Despite a little discomfort I made it down without a hitch, so I was happy. What a wonderful day it turned out to be.
The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived. ~Anonymous mountain climber.
Since I recently did a post about lichens that grow on trees I thought I’d do one on lichens that grow on stone. Though there are lichens that can grow on wood or stone most of the ones I know seem to prefer one or the other. In fact the ones I know seem very fussy about where they grow, even down to the species of tree or stone. The lichen in this first photo is not that fussy though, so it will even grow on sidewalks, and that’s how the name sidewalk firedot lichen (Caloplaca feracissima) came about. Though I’ve seen it on concrete once or twice in the past I almost always see it on lime rich stones. It’s a pretty orange color and it can get quite big. This one is as big as a car tire.
Another lichen that can get quite big is the peppered rock shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) but this example must have just gotten started because it was quite small and had few apothecia. This lichen likes to grow on stone in full sun and I find a lot of them on stone walls. They’re a good introduction to lichen study because their brown apothecia, where their spores are produced, are large and easy to see without aid.
Lichens are made up of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Technically apothecia are “fungal reproductive structures, in which the fungus reproduces itself through the production of spores” This is not the only way that lichens reproduce, but it is common and the apothecia are often beautiful and well worth watching for. The beautiful brown ones in the photo above belong to the peppered rock shield.
Some lichens are very easy to identify because there aren’t many others that look like them, and the toadskin lichen (Lasallia papulosa) is one of those. Toadskin lichens show color changes when they dry out like many other lichens. When wet it is pliable and pea green and when dry it becomes crisp and ash gray like the above example. Toadskin lichens get their common name from their many “warts.” They attach themselves to stone at a single point that looks like a belly button, and that makes them umbilicate lichens.
This is the very same toadskin lichen as the one in the previous photo. You can easily see the dramatic color change between this day when it was wet and when it was dry in the previous shot.
Rock tripe lichen (Umbilicaria mammulata) is a relative of the toadskin lichen but it doesn’t turn gray when it dries out. Instead it gets brownish and curls up. It is very pliable and rubbery when it’s moist, but once it dries out it becomes crisp like a potato chip. The Umbilicaria part of the scientific name comes from the Latin umbilicus, meaning navel. This is where another common name, navel lichen, comes from and points to how, like the toadskin lichens, they attach themselves to stone with a single attachment point that looks like a navel. It sticks itself to stone by way of this single, navel like attachment point and the rest of the lichen hangs from this central point, much like a rag hanging from a peg.
Here is what rock tripe lichens look like dry. You can see the back of it, which is black and pebble textured. Rock tripe is edible and eating it has saved the lives of people who were lost and starving in the past. Though I imagine they must taste like old rubber, these lichens were a source of emergency food for Native Americans and saved the lives of many an early settler. Even George Washington’s troops are said to have eaten rock tripe to survive the brutal winter at Valley Forge in 1777.
Rock greenshield lichens (Flavoparmelia baltimorensis.) Look like melted candle wax to me. They are very common in this area and are another of those bits of nature that you see so often they no longer register, but when you take the time to look closer you find that they are quite pretty.
If you happen to see a stone that looks like it has sprouted gray hairs you might want to take a closer look, because there’s a good chance you’re seeing a Cladonia lichen.
There are many Cladonia lichens including the well-known pixie cups, but I think these were peg lichens (Cladonia sobolescens.) Peg lichens are also a large group, with split pegs, thatched pegs, powdery pegs, etc., but these seem to fit the description of what the book Lichens of North America calls simply peg lichens. The “peg” is called a podetium and it is topped by brown apothecia.
Here is a closer look at the tiny tan / brown apothecia that sit atop the pegs. These are where the lichen’s spores are produced. They are so small that I wasn’t able to see them but luckily the camera could.
This peg lichen is a squamulose lichen, which means it is scaly, but it is also foliose, or leafy. Squamules are the small leafy, lobed growths that are at the base of the tiny peg shaped podetia. A podetium is an upright secondary thallus in Cladonia lichens. It is a hollow stalk extending from the primary thallus. Podetia can be pointed, club like, cupped, or branched in shape and may or may not contain the ascocarp, which is the fruiting body of the lichen. If the asocarp is bowl shaped it is an apothecium. In this peg lichen the podetia are not branched and the leafy squamules are rounded and grayish green to brown, with white undersides. The quality of these photos isn’t great but the various parts of this lichen are very small. I think they do show enough to make a fairly good identification but if I’m wrong I hope someone will let me know.
Scattered rock posy lichens (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) can be quite small and difficult to see without magnification, but it’s worth looking for them because they almost always have their bright orange apothecia showing. They like to grow on stone, especially granite, in full sun. They don’t seem to change their color when they dry out like many other lichens do. I’ve seen this pretty lichen even on mountain tops.
Here is a closer look at those pretty rock posy apothecia. The ones I’ve seen are never shiny. They always have a kind of matte finish.
Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) are uncommonly beautiful. Look for this bright yellow crustose lichen on stone. especially slate. I see it on older gravestones quite often. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that, at high magnification, the body of the common goldspeck lichen looks like it’s made up of tiny golden specks. The book Lichens of North America describes the body of this lichen as “little cushions of flattened granules.” This lichen is sometimes sterile, with no fruiting bodies present, but this one had a few. Crustose lichens form crusts that tightly adhere to the substrate that they grow on and usually can’t be removed without damaging it.
The golden moonglow lichens (Dimelaena oreina) that I see are usually about an inch across but they can get much bigger. They grow in full sun on granite and don’t seem to change color when they dry out like many other lichens do. The one in the photo was producing spores and that’s something I don’t see this lichen do very often. If you spend much time in cemeteries you have probably seen this pretty lichen, because it seems to like growing on smooth, polished stone, especially granite. It is a crustose lichen, so removing it from a gravestone would be a challenge. When lichens grow on glass the acids in them can actually etch the glass and this is a problem in the big European cathedrals, especially. I would think the same would be true for polished stone.
Another lichen common to stone walls is the sulfur dust lichen (Chrysothrix chlorina.) It’s a very soft, pale yellow and hides under overhangs so it doesn’t get rained on. At least I think that’s why I always find it tucked away like this, but this is odd behavior for a lichen because they usually like a lot of rain and sunshine.
Dog lichens (Peltigera) are good example of lichens that will grow on soil, rotting wood, or stone as this one was. Dog lichens are associated with mossy areas because the mosses help provide the moisture that they need. It is very thin and pliable. It is also a foliose lichen because it is lobed, or leaf like. The upper part of the body (Thallus) is undulating or veined on this example. This lichen is large and easy to see. It is also probably quite old.
Here is another look at the dog lichen. They’re much bigger than most other lichens. I’d guess this one is about the size of a 45 RPM record, if anyone can remember those.
The underside of a dog lichen is often bright white as this one was. They also have small hairs called rhizines which help them cling to whatever they’re growing on.
Smokey eye boulder lichen is a favorite lichen 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. It’s a very beautiful thing and I hope you’ll take the time to look for it and all of the other beautiful lichens out there.
There is no absolute scale of size in nature, and the small may be as important, or more so than the great. ~Oliver Heaviside
Santa brought me some Kahtoola Micro Spikes for Christmas this year, so of course I had to try them. On the day after Christmas I decided that climbing Pitcher Mountain over in Stoddard would be as good a trial as any and as luck would have it the trail was covered in snow and ice. I’ve heard a lot of good things about micro spikes and I have to say that I won’t be without them from now on. I purposely walked over ice with them on and didn’t slip or skid at all.
I found this photo online for those who haven’t seen micro spikes. They really grip.
The message was a good one but was a little late, I thought. Or maybe it was me who saw it too late.
There was quite a pile of wood chips at the base of a dead tree, so I looked up.
Sure enough a pileated woodpecker had been looking for lunch. Pileated woodpeckers are our largest woodpecker and you can tell their holes by the more or less rectangular shape. The unusual thing about this was the perfectly round holes made by a smaller woodpecker inside the pileated woodpecker holes. I’ve never seen this before. The smaller bird was smart to let the bigger bird do most of the work. If there are carpenter ants inside they’re usually in the heartwood of the tree.
Before you know it you’re at the meadow where Scottish Highland cattle sometimes graze. I didn’t see any on this day though.
The trail takes a sharp left at the meadow and gets a little steeper. So far legs, lungs and micro spikes were all working well but the snow had melted on this leg of the trail.
The crunchy, frozen soil told me I was walking on ice needles and there were plenty of them to see. A lot has to happen for these to form but I’ve explained it many times, so I’ll spare you this time. It has to be cold for them to form, with the temperature right at 32 degrees at the soil surface. Air temperature was about 22 degrees F. when I started.
Hoar frost grew around the mouths of chipmunk and snake holes in the soil. The earth’s warm breath meeting the cold air of winter.
Stone walls made me think of the Pitcher family, who settled here in the 1700s and most likely built this wall. They gave their name to this mountain.
One of my favorite places marks the second sharp left turn along the trail. After essentially living in a forest all of my life wide open places like this one seem almost other worldly. It’s just you, the earth and the sky. Minimalism at its finest.
Quite often you’ll find a place where the ground looks like it has heaved up and around stones. The stone sits at the bottom of a hole that is usually shaped exactly like it is, so it also looks like the sun has heated the stone enough for it to melt down into the frozen soil. I doubt that is the answer though because the sun would heat the surrounding stones as well, but they haven’t melted into the soil. I think the ground must have heaved up and lifted all the soil and smaller stones that surrounded the bigger one. I saw that this had happened in several places along the trail.
The inner bark of staghorn sumac is sometimes brightly colored like the thin strip at the top of this piece, which my color finding software tells me is coral and salmon pink along with a little orange. I saw that colorful strip and peeled the section of bark it was on. I was surprised to see that the inner bark still attached to the wood was Indian red, dark salmon pink, and a lot of sienna. Why this bark colors like this when the tree dies, I don’t know.
When bark is removed from a tree, as long as the tree isn’t girdled it will live and try to heal itself, but I’ve been watching this young staghorn sumac for a few years and it hasn’t healed at all. I think that’s because deer are using it to rub their antlers on, because the wound on the tree is always fresh. Male white tail deer, called bucks, rub their antlers on trees for different reasons, but it seems fitting that they would choose a staghorn sumac. Staghorn sumacs get that name because of the hairs all along their stems that resemble the velvet on a stag’s antlers. Maybe this deer thought he was fencing with another deer.
You can get a glimpse of the fire tower through the trees in some spots. The sunshine was glaring off the windows on this day.
The old ranger cabin is having a relatively easy winter so far but I’m sure it has seen winters up here when the snow almost buried it. The concrete piers and blocks it rests on have all shifted and I wonder how much longer it will be able to resist the pull of gravity. I wouldn’t be surprised to climb up here one day and find that it had tumbled down the mountainside.
The fire tower must be manned at some point during the year but I’ve only seen people in it once out of all the times I’ve been up here. There were a lot of people up here that day and they all wanted to get into the tower, so I passed on it.
It can be very windy up here so the tower is tied down to the bedrock by steel cables. The tie down shown was used for the original tower, which burned in 1940 in one of the worst forest fires this state has ever seen. 27,000 acres burned, including all the trees on this summit.
The views weren’t too bad but it was windy and that made it feel colder so I didn’t stay long.
I liked this view because you could see how snowy the distant hills were.
There was ice on the summit but I didn’t worry about slipping with the micros spikes on. They even seem to make walking on uneven stones easier.
A close look at the bedrock on the summit shows that it is almost entirely covered by lichens.
One of my favorite lichens that grow here is the common goldspeck lichen (Candelariella vitellina.) This pretty lichen contains a yellow pigment called calysin and it was once used to dye wool yellow in Sweden. How they ever got it off the stones, I don’t know.
Perhaps there’s no better act of simplification than climbing a mountain. For an afternoon, a day, or a week, it’s a way of reducing a complicated life into a simple goal. All you have to do is take one step at a time, place one foot in front of the other, and refuse to turn back until you’ve given everything you have. ~Ken Ilgunas
As the leaves fall there is much revealed in the forest that was hidden just a short time ago, and lichens are a big part of that revelation. Lichens are all around us but they’re one of those things that are so easy to miss unless we happen to be looking for them. Most people seeing this photo would probably say “Oh yes, I see lichens all over the stones in the stone wall.” But what about the tree? That’s a shagbark hickory tree and they have gray, not white bark. The white is a lichen called, appropriately enough, whitewash lichen (Phlyctis argena.) This lichen is usually found on the bark of hardwood trees and is fairly common. It makes the tree look as if it has been painted white, and that’s where its common name comes from. They can be greenish white, silvery, or bright white.
But you wouldn’t have been wrong in pointing out the lichens on the stone wall because it is covered with them, among them rock greenshield lichens (Flavoparmelia baltimorensis.) This lichen always looks like melted candle wax to me. It is very common in this area and is another of those bits of nature that you see so often they no longer register.
Peppered rock shield lichen (Xanthoparmelia conspersa) likes to grow on stone in full sun and I find a lot of them on stone walls like the one pictured in that first photo. They’re a good introduction to lichen study because their brown apothecia, where their spores are produced, are large and easy to see without aid. Lichens are made up of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Technically apothecia are “fungal reproductive structures, in which the fungus reproduces itself through the production of spores” This is not the only way that lichens reproduce, but it is common and the apothecia are often beautiful and well worth watching for.
Another lichen common to stone walls is the sulfur dust lichen (Chrysothrix chlorina.) It’s very yellow and hides under overhangs so it doesn’t get rained on. At least I think that’s why I always find it tucked away like this, but this is odd behavior for a lichen because they usually like a lot of rain and sunshine.
Sulfur dust lichens are kind of granular in texture. If you’re lucky you can sometimes find them with fruiting bodies (apothecia) but more often than not I see them when they aren’t producing spores, like this example.
If you spend time walking along old stone walls eventually you’ll see a stone with a splash of bright orange on it and it will probably be the sidewalk firedot lichen (Caloplaca feracissima,) so called because it is a lime lover and grows on concrete sidewalks, which have lime in them. When you see it in a stone wall it’s a fair bet that the stone it grows on has limestone in it too. This stone looks like granite to me but it is almost completely covered by it.
A closer look at this example of the sidewalk firedot lichen showed it was made up of mostly irregularly shaped fruiting bodies, so it was making plenty of spores. It was raining just a short while before I took this photo so it was also still wet. Lichens are at their best when they are wet because that’s when they’ll show their true colors and size, so that’s when serious lichen hunters look for them. A misty or drizzly day is perfect.
I know of an old stump that has more British soldier lichens (Cladonia cristatella) growing on it than I’ve ever seen in one place. Old rotted logs and stumps are the perfect places to find them and their bright red color makes them relatively easy to spot.
Even I can see this shade of red, and I’m colorblind.
If you see a tree with growths like this on it you really should take a closer look, because there are some amazing things going on here.
One of the things going on in the tree in the previous photo is what is happening on this star rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris.) Its apothecia are a good example of how colors can change, even on the same lichen. This lichen has dark brown apothecia that are often pruinose. Pruinose refers to the white, waxy, powdery coating on the apothecia. You’ve no doubt seen examples of this waxy “bloom” on blueberries and plums. I’ve noticed by watching lichens that have pruinose apothecia that the coating can reflect light in different ways, sometimes appearing gray and at other times more blue, and sometimes even black. The apothecia on this lichen show a range of colors, from brown to light blue. The way the sunlight strikes it has a lot to do with its colors, so sometimes you have to visit a lichen more than once to understand it.
Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) are uncommonly beautiful. Look for this bright yellow crustose lichen on stone, in this case slate. It’s a very artistic lichen and I like the patterns that it makes. I see it on gravestones quite often. It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that, at high magnification, the body of the common goldspeck lichen looks like it’s made up of tiny golden specks. The book Lichens of North America describes the body of this lichen as “little cushions of flattened granules.” This lichen is sometimes sterile, with no fruiting bodies present, as this one appeared to be. Crustose lichens form crusts that tightly adhere to the substrate that they grow on and usually can’t be removed without damaging it.
The golden moonglow lichens (Dimelaena oreina) that I see are usually about an inch across but they can get much bigger. They grow in full sun on granite and don’t seem to change color when they dry out like many other lichens do. The bigger one in the photo was producing spores and that’s something I don’t see this lichen do very often. If you spend much time in cemeteries you have probably seen this pretty lichen, because it seems to like growing on smooth, polished stone, especially granite. It is a another crustose lichen, so removing it from a gravestone would be a challenge. When lichens grow on glass the acids in them can actually etch the glass and this is a problem in the big European cathedrals, especially. I would think the same would be true for polished stone.
Bright yellow-orange poplar sunburst (Xanthomendoza hasseana) is a beautiful lichen with its large disc shaped, sucker like fruiting bodies (apothecia) which are almost always showing. It’s found on tree bark and provides a lot of color in winter when there are no flowers to see. The example shown here was about as big as a penny, or about .75 inches across.
Another sunburst lichen, the elegant sunburst (Xanthoria elegans) was exposed to ultraviolet radiation, cosmic radiation, and the vacuum of space for one and a half years and when it was brought back to earth it grew on as if nothing had happened. Many believe that lichens are virtually indestructible and are therefore as close to immortal as any earth based life form can be.
Pink earth lichen (Dibaeis baeomyces) closely resembles bubblegum lichen (Icmadophila ericetorum.) One of the differences between the two is the length of the stalks that the plump pink apothecia sit on. They are longer on bubblegum lichens than they are on pink earth lichens. Both are very beautiful things that are rarely seen in this area. The whitish or grayish thallus, or body of the lichen, grows on soil; usually on dry acidic soil near blueberry and sweet fern plants. It can sometimes have a bluish cast as well.
Here’s a closer look at the apothecia on the pink earth lichen. You can also see the stalks that support them.
Scattered rock posy lichens (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans) can be quite small and difficult to see without magnification, but it’s worth looking for them because they almost always have their bright orange apothecia showing. They like to grow on stone, especially granite, in full sun. They don’t seem to change their color when they dry out like many other lichens do. I’ve seen this pretty lichen even on mountain tops.
Some lichens are very easy to identify because there aren’t many others that look like them, and the toadskin lichen is one of those. Toadskin lichens show color changes like many other lichens. When wet it is pliable and pea green and when dry it becomes crisp and ash gray. This example hadn’t completely dried out but it was on its way, even though it had rained that morning. Toadskin lichens get their common name from their many “warts.” They attach themselves to stone at a single point that looks like a belly button, and that makes them an umbilicate lichen. This toadskin is very special, because it is the only one I’ve ever seen that wasn’t on a hill or mountain top. It grows on a boulder at the very water’s edge of a lake and I’m very happy that I found it now that hill climbing is getting more difficult. Now at least I’ll still be able to see these beautiful little things without having to struggle to reach them, if it comes to that.
Smokey eye boulder lichens (Porpidia albocaerulescens) are one of the most beautiful in my opinion, but their beauty is fleeting and it depends on how the light happens to fall on them. If you find one it might not look like this one at all. The pretty golden brown body (thallus) of the lichen is peppered with blue apothecia which again, are colored by the light. Take a look at the next photo to see what a simple change in light can do.
This is the exact same lichen we saw in the previous photo; all that is different is the light, and that’s why if you’re at all interested in lichens you really should visit them at different times of year, as I said when we looked at the star rosette lichen. The previous photo was taken when sunlight was falling on it, and this shot was taken when the lichen was in shade. Not only light but dryness can affect the color of many lichens, so make a note of where you find them and then go back when the weather has changed. I think you’ll be amazed by how much they can change, and also by how beautiful they can be.
There is a low mist in the woods—it is a good day to study lichens. ~Henry David Thoreau
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 