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Cladonia – any thoughts

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  • November 8, 2022 at 8:11 pm #32501
    Warwickshire-Lad
    Participant

      Found this Cladonia on a well rotted moss covered tree stump in a mixed conifer & deciduous wood. To date previous finds elsewhere in this area were either C.coniocraea and C.macilenta based on the grey dry to greener wet appearance and K-ve for the former and grey dry remaining grey wet and K+ve for the latter as described in Dobsons.

      This time however I seem to have a grey dry to greener wet change and a K+ve reaction. I would also say the squamules are larger then previous finds.

      At the moment I cannot find a comfortable ID so have taken these photographs for now and will revisit the site to take another sample later around mid next year. In the meantime I would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions from the forum about a possible ID.

      November 9, 2022 at 3:05 pm #45164
      Neil Sanderson
      Senior Moderator

        Well first Dobson is wrong “grey dry remaining grey wet and K+ve” will be nearly all be immature Cladonia polydactyla without cups. True Cladonia macilenta is a very different (and unrelated) species with very fine soralia, often with a yellowish tinge, and is mainly a heathland species, but found occasionally on large bits of dead wood but almost never on bark, see https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/resources/species-accounts/cladonia-macilenta” class=”bbcode_url”>https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/resources/species-accounts/cladonia-macilenta. It is closely related to Cladonia floerkeana. The problem with cup-less Cladonia polydactyla illustrates the big issue with herbarum based floras: only good well developed material is described and in the field you need to know about poorly grown individuals too. Yes Cladonia polydactyla does eventually develop cups when it is mature but large amounts of material do not have cups (the majority in stressed habitats) but is identifiable by the course soralia and the blueish tinge, which is unchanging when wet. I hope the Cladonia volume in LGBI3 managed to get out of this trap a bit.

        As for your odd specimen, I would suspect immature Cladonia digitata, the larger squamules with soralia on the edges suggest this, but this is a very poorly developed example and possibly too poor to name.

        Neil

        November 9, 2022 at 7:49 pm #45165
        Warwickshire-Lad
        Participant

          Neil – Many thanks for your insights into this Cladonia and digitata does seem the most likely. I will be checking further where this was found to see if further samples and better developed ones are present.

          January 20, 2023 at 4:09 pm #45166
          Warwickshire-Lad
          Participant

            Managed at last to revisit the location and took these photographs of the better developed parts of this Cladonia. The C.Digitata does seem correct.

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