I'm lichen it here

I'm probably jinxing it even as I type but after a busy morning's work re-writing and expanding my briefing paper, and after a lazy lunch, and a headachy, chesty tenderness afternoon that seemed to be shaping up for equal levels of laziness, my headache did actually seem to subside.  I was then seized with the idea to get fresh air and get my muscles working a bit. 

I had a nice brisk walk in the cold air, with occasional and very halfhearted flurries of sleet, so I wandered around the nature reserve for a while.  A couple of other trees had come down in the storm, peeling back the skin of mossy ground to reveal the mining and brickmaking history beneath.  The storm had also blown off the branches of various trees loads of this very tendrilly lichen, which I think is Monk's Hood, Hypogymnia physodes. Lichens are quite interesting because they're actually algae or cyanobacteria, which produce carbohydrates through photosynthesis, living symbiotically with fungus, which use the carbs and in return provide the sheltered environment for the algae and bacteria.  Given just how much is growing in this patch of somewhat rural woodland, the air quality must be pretty good, and it's somewhere I often visit for slow, thoughtful walks.