Ophioparma ventosa
I've wanted to see this lichen for a while.
And I have, often. But until it fruits in spectacular fashion, its just looked like many many other lichens.
Today was another super wet workshop with the added type two fun of falling branches. As ever though, a super enthused bunch, including a Dr of Geology. Great to be able to show her how that knowledge can be applied to lichens.
On a high chunck of bedrock we stood back approximately 1metre and pointed out half a dozen seemingly identical "splodges" (colonies) of white lichen.
We all took a step forward.
Now we could see that they had dark specks (fruiting bodies, apothecia) in them.
We all took a step forward.
Now we had a hint that the apothecia might not be the same colour, another step forward confirmed it.
Taking out our x30 magnifiers we could then see that some of those apothecia were lecideine and some were lecanorine. And crucially some of those lecideine apothecia were bright red.
Woohoo, Alpine Blood Spot lichen, not especially rare in the right environment, but rare to see and confirm.
For reference the largest red spots in this photo were 1mm across.
I know, I know. Geek.
PS - super chuffed that godson Isaac has made the front page of blip with his hitherto unrealised special powers.
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