100 Species, #1: British Soldier Lichen

[urbpan]

British soldier lichen Cladonia cristatella

I've been nervous to start this year's project, but it will be easier to start with a species I described a couple days ago. My goal, as usual, is to describe those species found around man-made environments, and explain why they are there, and what they do in the ecosystem. With this project, all the species will be found in the small plot of land on which I live; some in the house, some in the yard; some wild, some cultivated or domesticated.

This batch of British soldier lichen is growing on the shingles of the roof of our shed. The shed predates the house: the original owners of the house lived in the shed while they built the house. However the shingles appear to be relatively recent additions to the shed. The red parts of the lichens are the reproductive bodies, throwing fungal spores complete with captured algae (the species Trebouxia erici, the same alga species that partners with sunburst lichen) into the air. It takes 5 years of growth or so before the lichen produces these structures, so we know this lichen colony is at least that old. This batch of British soldiers was photographed after it spent a month under the heaviest snow load our region has seen in decades. This is a resilient, long-lived fungus.

Mycologist Tom Volk's post on this lichen.

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Yay, you started the project :-) I don't think I've ever seen those; I must look for them.