Greetings in the new year. The blog has been a little quite but it’s time to get back at it. With the heavy snow cover over much of the state it’s not a great time to be searching for lichens, much better to be working through sightings from the past year. However this lichen is actually one that will stick out above the snow. Villophora microphyllina has a few different names out there depending on the reference and was once part of the formerly mighty Caloplaca genus. It can be looked for over much of the state, although from the specimen map on the Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria (CNALH) site I would guess the eastern plains are a more likely place to find it.
As my title suggests I have exclusively found this species on fenceposts in mostly open country. On a recent drive in Kansas I actually saw a bright orange top to a fence and sure enough it was also this species. I assume this is both due to the lichen’s habitat preference and the fact that a bright orange fence post is easy to see. A little more effort and surely the lichen can also be found on more natural substrates.
This is an extremely tiny lichen. A good macro photo or hand lens is needed to really see the details in the field. However, in the field the generally grainy look should be obvious. This is due to the numerous soredia. Beware some lookalikes out there where the thallus is entirely soredia and looks like someone spilled a powder. In this species there should be some true margins visible and the thallus more or less continuous. Easier to spot are the bright orange/red apothecia, clearly contrasting with the more dull orange thallus (Note the lichen in the top photo has very few apothecia a sterile specimen would be difficult to ID).
Next time you are out on a country road don’t forget to stop and inspect the fenceposts.
One of my oldest nature memories was my grandparents taking me on a walk around Brainard Lake in the mountains of Boulder County. I’m not even sure how old I was. But I was struck by the tall pines, the smell of the forest, and the moss-covered trees. Since then I haven’t lost a love for the subalpine forest, but I have learned that the pines were Englemann Spruce and the “moss” were lichens, specifically those in the genus Usnea.
A particularly wonderful forest I happened upon was along HWY 550 north of Durango along Cascade Creek. I had actually been hoping to find a particular species of lichen on the trip–Usnea cavernosa. As I understand it, it is the largest Usnea in the state, and therefore rather easy to identify in a difficult genus. Check out (photo two) the distinctive pits on the branches that give this species its specific epithet and separate it from similar species elsewhere in North America.
Many people when first seeing these organisms assume they are Spanish Moss, familiar if you have travelled in the Southeast. Spanish Moss, like lichens, suffers from a colloquial description as moss, however it’s actually a flowering plant. The strands of Usnea cavernosa can purportedly grow up to 2 feet long! It was the first time I’ve seen large stands1 in the state.
Upon closer look this was not the only species growing in the area. In fact I found at least four species of pendant fructicose lichens in the image at the top of the page. Others are:
This lichen appears to be common at a certain elevation in CO if the area gets enough shade and water. All Usnea species have round branches, the flat branches of Evernia should easily separate this genus. Well, among pendant lichens with that off-color green that betrays the presence of usnic acid.
This was a surprise. The genus Ramalina is mostly coastal. On my last trips to California and North Carolina, oaks were covered in related lichens. I had no clue they occurred in CO. The wide branches (often very broad) with ridges should be enough to confirm an ID in CO. For bonus points the underside should have areas of breaks in the thallus between the ridges where the medulla is visible, called pseudocyphellae. This photo is the top side so the mark is not visible. Herbarium records show a concentration of the species in the San Juan Mountains but look for it in elsewhere and perhaps other members of the genus.
Bryoria sp. – As far as I can tell this appear to be Bryoria fuscescens but the taxonomy appears to be in flux and many of the keys are confusing to say the least!
Lichens often make you have to appreciate some, well, less aesthetically pleasing organisms. Bryoria sure fit that bill. These dark lichens are pretty unmistakable in CO. They have a particular fondness for Douglas-fir.
The final species I found was Usnea perplexans. Feel free to follow the link. We have covered Usnea before! This species appears to be the most common species in the state, but I wonder if I am applying the keys correctly. Our previous post mentions U. subfloridana which also occurs in the state, and looks very much like U. perplexans. My conclusion is that perplexans is a perfect name for the situation. I’ll be sure to post if I work it out!
1Riddle me this, but everywhere I have read seems to talk about the genus like they are trees. They grow in “stands” and have branches. Can you think of another organism that a group is described as a stand?
Lichens come in some fabulous colors. They decorate our rocks and trees and in some places they dominate their substrate so heavily that we don’t even see the rock underneath. Only seeing the lichens. The wonderful flatirons of Boulder are a great example. You can see the Pleopsidium flavum from miles away1! Depending on who you ask, lichens cover between 5-8% of the Earth’s land surface2.
The brilliant reds and oranges of the family Teloschistaceae are particularly stunning. The red color comes from a series of different compounds called anthraquinones, in part. The color is so distinctive to the family that is it nearly diagnostic (don’t worry, lichen lovers, exceptions abound).
One fun thing about this group of chemicals is that they turn a deep purple when exposed to potassium hydroxide, called a K test if you want to look cool around other lichen enthusiasts.
Another important lichen color to learn is a rather unique yellow/green (left). This color comes from usnic acid. It is a very common lichen substance. The term lichen substance is a very unimaginative term used for the unique chemical compounds that lichens produce. Lichen substances are very important in taxonomy and often identification.
Lichens in the family Physciaceae are a wonderful blue grey color (below) that is a great test of your photography skills. I, at least, never get the color to show up true.
Once you are done ogling over some lovely lichen thalli, ponder a simple question. Why are lichens colorful? Lichens live an odd life. They grow extremely slowly and never move, just sitting there soaking in the sun, while their photobiont friends make them sugars.
The other photosynthetic organisms lichen hunters encounter frequently are a good start for what color a lichen should be. I’m talking about plants (hardcore lichen finders only acknowledge plants as a potential substrate for lichens to grow on; skip this paragraph if it’s upsetting). Plants are green because they want their photosynthetic cells to get as much light as possible and the chlorophyll they use is a bright green. In other words, no other colors are in the way of absorbing precious light. Our good friend Peltigera aphthosa (right) is green (when wet) for a similar reason3. But it is by far the exception; most other lichens need to be cut into to reveal the photobiont. This means the lichen is sacrificing optimal light penetration.
So why are lichens so beautiful? The resources I own spend very little time on the subject. In Brodo’s Lichens of North America we only get two pages. One possibility is that bright colors are protective against ultraviolet radiation. This appears to be very true with our Rusavskia elegans (I promise a lichens in space post soon and, yes, its related). White colors can scatter light, which is protective for species that are in exposed habitat. The lichens can’t afford for their photobiont friends to bake or they won’t live long.
I hope to come back to this question in a new series of posts. Get ready to break out your old biology textbooks, and, far more frighteningly, maybe even a little organic chemistry.
1 Okay, some squinting required, but if you see any lemon yellow up there it’s very likely this species.
2 Asplund, J., & Wardle, D. A. (2016). How lichens impact on terrestrial community and Ecosystem Properties. Biological Reviews, 92(3), 1720–1738. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12305
3 While I couldn’t specifically find an answer, the photobiont in Peltigera aphthosa is a green algae in the genus Coccomyxa. Like plants it uses chlorophyll a, but may have different concentrations of other chlorophylls. There are three CO Peltigera that share this character, Peltigera venosa, leucophlebia, and aphthosa. The remaining Peltigera have Nostoc, a blue-green cyanobacteria, as a photobiont. They also are bright green only when wet and brown/green when dry. I’d love to try and figure out why this rather major difference does not put the green algae species in their own genus. Check out this post for some more information about Petigera leucophlebia.
Rhizoplaca novomexicana – Slick Rock, San Miguel County, CO. On sandstone.
Unfortunately it’s been a bit since my last post, but fortunately some of that time was spent staring intently at rocks, trees and dirt on the west slope of Colorado. Since I had not spent much time at all in that part of the state after my infatuation with lichens began, I did not know what to expect. What I certainly did not expect was for Rhizoplaca novomexicana to be by far the most conspicuous lichen in my travels.
Called New Mexico Rim-Lichen by some authors, there are specimen records for most of the mountain west from the Mexico border just reaching Canada. In Colorado, it can be found just about anywhere including the plains and the high tundra, rocks required. Along the Front Range it is rather local on sunny rocks and more common above timberline. But judging from four days spent near the Utah border it can be found anywhere out west, I found some just about anywhere I looked, especially on sandstone. As a taxonomic note this species was long in the huge Lecanora genus, that is before modern taxonomists carved it up into a dozen or so new genera. Within the genus Rhizoplaca it stands out by being truly crustose. It’s close relative Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca is attached at single point, like a very short tree trunk, or umbilicate in lichen terms.
Rhizoplaca novomexicana – Near Lyons, CO.
In identifying this species, narrow down your search criteria first by a high level description. It’s crustose, it has lobate margins, and it has plenty of apothecia. This lichen can be sterile but usually a fertile specimen is nearby. Next up note the rather unique yellow-green color of the overall thallus. Also a nice clue, is that this species is often missing older parts of the center of the thallus as in the lichen to the right.
The key I first used to identify this species, Brodo’s Lichens of North America, makes a big point of the shape of the margins. They are distinctly raised vs flat and instead of overlapping form tiny winding canyons. This is also a important characteristic of the most common lobate crust along the front range,Protoparmeliopsis garovaglii. To close out the ID check out the color of the apothecia. They should nearly black to a kind of bluish grey; there always seems to be a hint of cobalt color if you look carefully enough. Often, but not always, the apothecia are dusted in a yellow pruina like the individual below.
Rhizoplaca novomexicana – Near Lyons, CO
I am excited to share some of the other tales from exploring the dusty canyons of western Colorado. So hopefully a quick introduction to a new fungus whetted your appetite.
Spring is brief in Colorado, making it very important to play hooky this time of year! This post records an adventure from back in May 2009, a wetter spring than Colorado has had in recent years. That made it a perfect time to visit Lair o’ the Bear Park with a friend to see jelly lichens.
I hadn’t visited for a while, so had to check every cliff to find the right one, way out at the west end of the creekside trail that was once the main road from Morrison to Evergreen, shortly before it enters adjacent Corwina Park.
Eventually we reached the proper cliff, where we could see not only the sought-after jelly lichens, but the wonderful Sticta, and verdant masses of spikemoss, Selaginella. The jelly lichens were soft and slimy from recent rains and lingering rivulets in the cracks and crevices of the cliff. In this photo, a large Umbilicaria (lichen, not a jelly one) is under the ring, with dark Selaginella to its right, and lighter-colored masses of true mosses surrounding.
Properly called gelatinous lichens, these lichens are so named because they lack the firm texture of more typical foliose lichens and have a characteristic translucence when wet. (They remind me of the “tree ears” we sometimes encounter in Chinese restaurant dishes, but those are actual fungi.) Gelatinous lichens are unstratified or only partially so, lacking the distinct algal layer, and sometimes the firm lower and/or upper cortex found in the “typical” lichen (if there is such a thing). The primary phycobiont species is a cyanobacterium, generally Nostoc.
They look so different when they’re dry! This one is, I believe, a species of Leptogium, with a white tomentum visible on the lower surface. Perhaps L. saturninum, but confirmation will have to await another trip. With a hand lens. For those who prefer common names, LoNA* calls this one bearded jellyskin.** (Ugh!)
By the way, you can sometimes find free-living forms of terrestrial Nostoc in Colorado (more commonly here in NY). We’ve seen them on Lyons Sandstone near Red Rocks Park.
* LoNA is Lichens of North America, the coffee table book of lichens, by Brodo, Sharnoff, and Sharnoff. Highly recommended! You can see Sharnoff’s species photos from the book at Sharnoff Lichen pages.
** Jellyskin is the name used here for the entire genus of Leptogium, as opposed to the name “jelly lichen” given only, in that book, to species of Collema, another common jelly lichen. This is the only book I know that assigns common names to lichens; few lichens have true common names.
The Powdered Sunshine Lichen or Vulpicida pinastri is certainly one of the most striking of Colorado lichens. For those of us who like to identify lichen to species it also happens to be highly distinctive!
This species is quite common once you know where to look for it. It likes cool wetter areas in the higher areas of the foothills up to timberline. It is a corticolous lichen, fancy scientist speak for growing on trees of bark. The species has a particular fondness for stumps, especially where humans have cut down a tree. Like other species that prefer exposed wood and not bark, it also grows on other human-made substrates like fences.
It can be rather immediately identified by its erect foliose structure, the intense yellow marginal soredia that look like a crust on the outer edges of the lichen, and a blue-green thallus. This species is almost always sterile, meaning the lichen only reproduces asexually by the dispersal of tiny particles of those beautiful yellow soredia.
Vulpicida pinastri on an old stump, a common substrate – Gregory Canyon, Boulder CO. Click to enlarge.
I tried to find more about the species’ natural history, and like many lichens there is not much out there. It is a Holarctic species distributed in northern hemisphere in both North America and Eurasia. It can be found in boreal forests and at higher elevations in mountains further south. That’s us in Colorado! One study1 used this species to show that some lichen substances are indeed toxic and are a possible way to limit anything from eating them. Another presentation2 made the bold claim that chemicals produced could have potential in the treatment of Alzheimer’s! At any rate surely there is more to learn about this lichen, but for now head up into the mountains and try and spend some time with your new acquaintance Vulpicida pinastri.
1 Pöykkö, H., Hyvärinen, M., & Bačkor, M. (2005). Removal of lichen secondary metabolites affects food choice and survival of lichenivorous moth larvae. Ecology, 86(10), 2623–2632. https://doi.org/10.1890/04-1632
2 Ureña Vacas, I. M., González Burgos, E., & Gómez-Serranillos, M. P. (2019). Antioxidant capacity and cholinesterase inhibitory activity of vulpicida pinastri lichen and its chemical composition. Proceedings of 5th International Electronic Conference on Medicinal Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.3390/ecmc2019-06317
Underpass to the Highway 36 onramp on Baseline Road, Boulder.
You may well be asking why on earth I have started this post with a picture of an underpass, but on a windy day in Boulder here I was.
I have always been fascinated by the life that manages to persist in heavily disturbed urban areas like the plants sprouting through cracks in the sidewalk. While sometimes easy to simply dismiss the life that persists in these places, to wish that native species could be flourishing instead of the non-native weeds, bugs and animals, I think learning what can live in the midst of all of humanity is a worthwhile task. As I set off my soap box I present to you one such organism.
Flavoplaca citrina (tentative) – Growing on a synthetic fiber. See the retaining wall on the left side of the top photo and you can just barely see the black material with yellow crust on top.
I was quite surprised to see large patches of a yellow lichen growing on some material presumably used to help keep the dirt in place on the retaining wall. I was even more surprised when I looked closer and determined it was a species I had clearly never seen before. When attempting to key out this specimen I had no good answer it asked me what substrate it was growing on! If you believe it construction material wasn’t an option. Presuming I have the species correct in Tom Nash’s excellent Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 3 possible substrates for the species are “on wood, bark, bryophytes, non-calcareous or calcareous rocks.” This to me shows that the species can be rather opportunistic when it comes to where it can grow. Perhaps a reason it chose this man-made material as a home.
Next time you are on a walk through the city and you see a splash of color where you don’t expect take a closer look you may just find a lichen adapting to the new urban environment we have created.
Flavoplaca citrina (tentative) – Showing off it’s apothecia (bright orange discs with yellow rims) which were present on some but not all colonies of the lichen.
One of the main reason’s I wanted to start writing on lichens is to show others how to start identifying them. So watch out I’m going to get technical down here and describe this lichen.
Let’s start with a description of the thallus. Step one, it has a thallus, this is the yellow portions in the above photo, and is the main body of the lichen. In some of the small crustose species the entire thallus can be hidden within the substrate and only the apothecia are showing. The thallus also has no distinct leaf-like shapes at the edges (non-lobate) and only consists of little individual specks (areolate).
Second step color, yellow and orange lichens are rather distinctive and, in general, are going to belong to only a few groups of lichens. When presented by a new yellow or orange species a chemical test with Potassium Hydroxide solution is a good step. Lichen aficionados call this a K test. Fun fact K is a product used for some dermatological applications and is super easy to buy. Please inform your spouse before they ask why you purchased foot fungus medicine. I digress. Treat a small section with the reagent and it may well turn blood red. If this is true you have a member of the family Teloschistaceae, as was true today.
Next step is describe the reproductive structures (I hope for a full post about this soon). In the last photo we have apothecia disc or cup shaped structures, but looking closer there is more.
Microscope view of the areoles (the individual units of yellow above). A continuous thallus is not divided this way. See also the marginal soredia.
Looking closer we see powdery masses on the margins, these are soredia. This powder can disperse in the wind or hitch a ride on an animal and if it find the right place to live a new lichen can form. Lichens are weird, as you may have picked up on, this specimen reproduces both sexually (apothecia) and asexually (soredia). Talk about keeping our options open.
Hopefully those that kept reading learned a new term of two. Identifying lichens can be extremely hard, and a good key is necessary, or even specialized equipment. If you think I blundered this ID (very likely) let me know I would love to know why.
Hello! I am very excited to introduce myself. My name is Nick Moore. I am looking forward to sharing the world of Colorado Lichens and I hope to be a regular contributor to this wonderful site that has been built over the years.
So who am I, you might ask. I am someone who has always loved nature, who only recently decided to learn the ways of lichens, and has leapt headfirst into this new world. Hopefully those that stumble across these posts want to come along for the ride.
Why don’t we start with some of my favorite local species. These are some charismatic species that can be found on just about every hike through the lower foothills of Boulder County.
The answer to what’s that yellow on that rock over there along much of the front range. This lichen has an amazing need to be on vertical rock faces.
In a prelude to what I hope will be a future blogpost this species has been taxonomically unsettled in the state. So I would not be surprised to someday learn that this is the wrong name for this lichen or even that multiple species are involved. That day may come as soon as the right person reads this paragraph!
Perhaps my favorite front range lichen. Once you learn it you will find it very common on sunny exposed rocks. But, unlike the previous species you will find is accompanied by a whole host of similar colored species. Identifying lichens is hard, observing them in all their beauty is easy.
Start walking up your favorite foothill trail. When you get to a nice cool spot under the shade of a big conifer, look down into the tangle of moss and lichen at the roots of the tree. One of the lichens you find is sure to be this wonderful foliose lichen and you’ll soon find it on other substrates as well. Just be sure to note the raised web of white tissue forming what look like cracks (pseudocyphellae) characteristic of the genus. Keep searching and you will find that sulcata is not the only member of the genus present in Colorado.
I hope you enjoyed the post. Perhaps you noted that each photo here links to my iNaturalist observation for the lichen. I hope to have iNaturalist be a constant part of my posts here, and you can always see more of my photos by searching for @nickmoore91. I post everything from birds, insects, fungi and more. Feel free to reach out!
Changes are afoot here at Colorado Lichens. After long dormancy, we’ve relocated and cleaned up a bit, and the transition is mostly complete as of March 17. After five years’ absence from Colorado, I don’t know that I have much more to say about the lichens of that lovely state, and will actively seek an interested party to assume this domain and perhaps some of its content.
It looks as though everything is working properly, although you may stumble across missing images. If that happens, please let me know— I’ll have a contact form up soon for reporting issues and general comments.
Cetraria islandica, a true lichen known as Icelandic moss, captured as an ingredient in “Icelandic schnapps.”
An unexpected encounter last week reminds me to talk about one of my favorite lichens! Cetraria islandica is not entirely rare in Colorado, but I would guess it’s rarely seen by most of us. For one thing, it occurs at higher elevations, above, say, 8000 ft. (~2440 m) It’s also cryptically colored, blending in with the forest floor, where it can be confused with other small plants, mosses, and lichens carpeting the soil.
Steeped in alcohol, “Iceland moss” becomes Icelandic schnapps—definitely an acquired taste.
But the lichen I encountered last week, at a friend’s house, was in a bottle, lending flavor and perhaps substance to a concoction called Icelandic schnapps. Of course, I had to taste it, and he was kind enough to oblige. Knowing he had laboriously carried it home from a visit to Iceland, I did not ask for a second glass.
Cetraria islandica is one of a few species of this genus known to occur in Colorado, although they will be more common at higher altitudes (or latitudes!). All are fruticose, after a fashion, and more or less brownish in color. (Clarity is helped here by the fact that the yellowish species are now in a separate genus: Flavocetraria.)
According to CNALH: “Cetraria ericetorum is distinguished from C. islandica … by having a consistently P- medulla, and by the pseudocyphellae being strictly marginal and sometimes indistinct or absent. Cetraria ericetorum ssp. reticulata belongs within the C. ericetorum complex comprising three mainly geographical races. Subspecies. reticulata basically comprises the subspecies occurring in North America.”
A third species, Cetraria aculeata is more truly tangled and shrubby, its branches more rounded than flattened. It was once in a separate genus, called Cornicularia.
Colorado Lichens and Friends 