50 lichens!

So Protoblastenia rupestris has become the 50th lichen to be recorded at Cullaloe. A lovely mortar-lover which was inhabiting a small corner of a chunk of mortar on the wall near the disabled car park. There are plenty more to come but 50 was the target for this year.

Back to Cullaloe lichens

A lovely Physcia aipolia on the wooden fence near the entrance and Xanthoria polycarpa on a hawthorn near the filter beds

Porpidia crustulata at Cullaloe

A nice decoration to some exposed stones in the mossy barrens and on the path. There seems to be no surface of any kind that something won't cling to and spurt out its spores. It's a wonder we can breathe at all!

January roundup

So a very decent start to the year saw me successfully resist the temptation to full on listing and focus on new species. 25 new species were added to the catalgoue. Most of these were new and most fungal, but some were roundups from previous records through Fife Nature (especially springtails, oddly) and one re-determination via iRecord added Sloe Shieldbug (making T.Bantock another new contributor to the Cullaloe story - many thanks!)

The latest additions on the 31st were the lichens Hypotrachyna revoluta and Cladonia digitata. Sadly since I found the first record for Fife about a week before somewhere else I robbed the reserve of a medal! It's nice though

This means the lichen total slowly edges towards 50 and semi-respectability. Double that ought to be more like the final tally though.

Lichen Tephromela atra - Black Shields

Should be called Purple Shields really, since they are just really, really dark purple. It was nice to see the character that the whole apothecium content is purple since I now know that a couple of other things I looked at couldn't have been Tephromela.

This is lichen number 39 for Cullaloe, and species 1315

The black shields

closer

A sectional view - all purple ...

... very purple

8 colourless, aseptate spores

More fun with lichens

A veritable miniature garden of lichens on a fallen twig. Xanthoria parietina (yellow), Physcia adscendens (with hairs) and Lecanora chlarotera (tan discs)

A big day in the east end

A trip out to the eastern leg of the reserve proved a big success at the weekend, with a particular focus on lichens. I started out by dropping into the area north of the paddock to check a hawthorn I knew had a lot of lichen. My intention was to record Platismatia glauca which I was sure must be there. On the same tree I also bumped into Pseudevernia furfuracea.

Phlebia radiata

Pseudevernia with its dark underside

The lettucy-looking Platismatia

Further along the eastern leg I checked out the Phlebia radiata just because it's so nice, but also found Diatrype disciformis there which I hadn't recorded before. As I walked along I looked down into the ditch on the right to see a Woodcock standing in the shallow water. It eyeballed me for a few seconds before deciding to make a break for it. A few seconds longer than I normally see them for!

My intention now was to check the wall for lichens, but what I wasn't expecting was a new fern and a new moss at the same spot. I barely covered a few feet of wall and also had some nice unrecorded lichens there.

Candelariella sp.

Asplenium ruta-muraria and Encalypta streptocarpa

Caloplaca holocarpa

Verrucaria nigrescens

Verrucaria nigrescens

On the way back I took some photos of a tree-trunk lichen which turned out to be Lecanora expallens. It is in an extensive patch but some small outliers allow the grey prothallus and mint green sorediate centres to be more apparent:

All in all a big day with several new lichen species addded plus one bonus fern and one bonus moss.

Fuscidea lightfootii

This badly photographed coloniser of small branches is the latest addition to the fledgling lichen list of Cullaloe. Target for the year was 25 so only a couple more to go and I will feel like we're starting to get somewhere

Inverkeithing guest appearance

Lovely band of the orange lichen Caloplaca marina along the rocks at Inverkeithing. Everyday things that you can take for granted. imagine how many millions of asco-spores are being churned out.

Gribbit

From a splendid morning yesterday I wish this frog photo had turned out better, but I only had my phone and the result isn't as nice as it could have been

As well as a Green Sandpiper and some nice Water Rails out in the open I also added a new lichen (Hypogymnia physoides) and found some heather growing in the middle of the mossy barrens. Will it settle and expand? Why not? On the other hand it's in an area I'd rather it didn't expand in. Everything changes sooner or later though.

Lovely lichens

A duo of completely different lichens - first up is Aspicilia contorta, which is a common concrete lover and which I found on the concrete buttress of the wall in the car park area. The last two pictures is on top of the wall and I believe is the older, more settled version where the "jelly tots" have all flattened down into tilework

The second is a lovely Cladonia chlorophaea with chunky soredia. This is from Mossmorran though, amongst the heather.

Lichens are go!

So this twig is from Kinross, but it gives an example of how speciose lichens can be in a small area. This fallen Salix twig (broken in two for carriage) yielded six species of lichen, and probably some more that I missed.

Melanohalea elegantula
Xanthoria parietina 
Lecanora confusa
Lecanora chlarotera
Physcia tenella (?)
Physcia aipolia

Twig - Salix sp.

Lecanora confusa

L.chlarotera, P.leptalia, X.parietina, M.elegantula

 

Physcia aipolia

Physcia tenella (?)

Xanthoria parietina

Cladonia coniocraea

Don't record many lichens, because I don't know what they are, but this one I think is straightforward enough

Cullaloe Roundup

A quick visit on Sunday to check the reserve for fungi particularly.The reserve's had a hair cut in preparation for next year's wildflower growth

A nice damp and quiet corner of the reserve. Well, more in the middle really.

A few fungi around the place

And a few more lichens. Rich pickings if I could identify them!