Mosses, Lichens, Liverworts etc: under-recorded groups

[Maggi Young]

What I know  about  these things  could be  written on the  sharp end of a  pin - but they are  fascinating!

[ashley]

Lovely plants Ian
Hereabouts it's mostly Drosera rotundifolia, or less commonly D. intermedia.
I recognise some of the mosses and sphagnums but couldn't put a name to most of them unfortunately.  However the variety of forms, textures and colours are endlessly beautiful, as Maggi says.

[ian mcdonald]

[ian mcdonald]

I wish I knew something about mosses and lichens but I suppose I am too lazy to find out.

[Maggi Young]

An  introductory  video about  lichens ..... What actually is a lichen? Expert lichenologist Joe Hope explains.

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[Tristan_He]

I love stoneworts Ian - really pretty little plants and also good for water quality. There aren't that many species so it's possible to become reasonably expert without too much effort, though like much in botany the terminology is very off-putting to start with.

Yours is most likely Chara virgata, though the photo doesn't show key characters in enough detail to be sure. All Chara can be identified as soon as you pull them out of the water, because they smell of stale garlic!

[David Lyttle]

When the weather is indifferent and the wind is blowing lichens make good photographic subjects so I have been taking a few lichen pictures lately

These crustose lichens form beautiful patterns on boulders. Each lichen colony is marked by a black border where there is some sort of chemical warfare going on. The brown colours are due to iron staining; the iron being derived from the rock substrate.





Here is an olive-green foliose lichen. The name I was given for it is Xanthoparmelia verisidiosa.



and last but not least Xanthoparmelia scabrosa. It is known informally as the sexy pavement lichen. It seem to have hit the headlines round the world following a report on one of the NZ news sites. see https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@health--science/2019/08/14/745287/please-dont-lick-the-sexy-pavement-lichen# also
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/15/new-zealanders-warned-about-the-consumption-of-sexy-pavement-lichen My lichenologist friend Allison who is quoted in the Guardian article coined this name for it and it seems to have caught the public's imagination. The Guardian did not manage to get the photo right. There is a lot of it round here growing in the pollution -free fresh air of the Otago Peninsula; any requests for it should be accompanied by cash (or bitcoin).

So here it is is a rather un-preposessing cabbagey, grey foliose lichen:-

[ian mcdonald]

Good photos. David.

[David Lyttle]

Thanks, Ian, for your kind words. Looking at your photos I see similarities between N. Hemisphere lichens and the ones we find in New Zealand even though they are not necessarily the same species.

In the first photo there is a lot going on: The grey lichen (upper right centre) is the subject of the photo. It has conspicuous brown apothecia. It is surrounded by three patches of a light coloured foliose lichen. There is a grey foliose lichen (lower left centre) which is overgrowing its neighbours.



Next picture shows a light coloured foliose lichen aggressively colonising a boulder and about to overgrow a white crustose lichen on the right.



Next a white crustose lichen with black apothecia and a close up showing detail of the same.





Last photo is Placopsis rhodopthalma, an attactive crustose lichen with pink apothecia. The black nodules are called cephalodia. They contain cyanobacteria in an otherwise green algal thallus and have the ability to fix nitrogen.

[Rick R.]

I have been reading up on Selaginella rupestris reproduction since I notice these on my plants:


-- Are these megaspores from dehisced megasporangia?  They are about one millimeter long.


Strobilus and vegetative stem

[johnw]

Our two linden trees planted between the sidewalk and the street in the very early 1900s are almost completely covered in lichens, most heavily in the main trunks.  The bark is barely visible.  One wonders if the pandemic has speeded their growth. Noticed 2" old man's beards starting up as well.

john

[Yann]

Lichens are fascinating

[Nik]

White coral slime mold

[Nik]

Clubmoss

[Nik]

I did see a couple of Hericium posts in the thread.
Here is Hericium americanum. It is delicious, taste and consistency of scallops.