Can someone please identify this lichen? I am pretty sure it is a lichen, but just can't seem to find the name of it. It is the small round lumps that I want to know the name of.
Hmmmm would saying "crustose apotheciate lichenized ascomycete" sound good? <grin> So, I don't know what kind of lichen this is, but the circles are fruiting bodies(mushrooms), of a category called apothecia, term for saucer shaped spore producing structures. The fungus part of this fungi/algae partnership is an ascomycete (spore shooters), the group that contains various cup fungi, morels, false morels, etc. The body of your lichen looks crustose, as in flat, in/on the substrate. The fungi partner in most lichens are ascomycetes; a local example of a basidiomycete (spore droppers, cap/stem fungi often) lichen is Lichenomphalia/Omphalina sp. which grows small beige umbrellalike mushrooms. cheers, frog
Yup Barb - whoops I got on kind of a roll there, off on a tangent eh <grin> ... but seriously though, although I don't know which kind of lichen this specimen is, I can speak to at least some lichen-ish topics/questions if anyone is into it. And if you are really into it, Trevor Goward has written and posted some really interesting philosophical/biological pieces ("Enlichened Essays") on lichens http://www.waysofenlichenment.net/. whee! frog
Smart guess Togata, but from the sense of scale in the photo and the crustose-look to this, I'd be guessing in sort of a Ochrolechia-esque direction. But not necessarily the genus Ochrolechia, as I think there are a lot of things in that morphological group. .... Maybe if we keep talking about it, a lichenologist out there will get impatient, and give us a name :-). Although, um, "lichenologist" and "impatient" don't actually seem like compatible concepts! cheers -frog
