Dear all, I am a french conservator doing microscopic analysis from time to time but I am not specialized on lichen. I can't find any information about mine so if anyone has an idea about... I hope you know it. Last thing :the specimen growes on calcareous stone. Thanks.
Hi, thanks for help, I found you were right, it was a moss and the wrong photograph so once again, here is one or maybe more lichens growing on the same location: calcareous sculpture, Jura, France. Thanks, everything would help as i only know moulds.
There are an estimated 17,000 species of lichens. Some haven't even been classified because their fruiting bodies have never been observed. Mycologists don't agree on how to classify them. Some consider them to be ecosystems and not organisms. Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae or a cyanobacteria. Their classification is usually based upon the species of fungi, which are mostly ascomycetes. Microscopic characteristics would have to be observed in order to make an identification. The general type of lichen in the photograph looks like a crustose lichen. Here is an article about the classification of lichens
I am no expert on lichens, as a matter of fact I have only began a study of them. Judging from just the photograph, my best guess would be Xanthoria spp., marked by the pigment parietin. You may want to research that further.
I too am no expert, but it looks like you have more than one species. You may need to collect a specimen (with permission from the landowner or manager of course), and examine it under magnification. I would suggest you contact a lichenologist in your part of the world. The International Association of Lichenologists (http://www.lichenology.org/index.html) includes many European lichen resources that could help with your ID. Many lichen species have wide distributions, some spanning continents or the globe.
