The ancient Yew in East Chiltington churchyard has records of Zwackhia prosodea from 1972 to 1993. I have done a bit of surveying in the churchyard and found what I think is Z. prosodea on a massive rounded lump on the trunk of the Yew. It fits the description in terms of length of lirellae 2-3mm, and the slit not open, also right colour for the thallus and how the lirellae are positioned I think. I’m not very experienced with this but it just looked different from all the O. atra that I’ve ever seen, which I think might be the only other possibility. I have attached photos. I wondered if this was enough to record Z prosodea still being there or do the spores need to be looked at. I didn’t want to take a sample if I could avoid it as I know it’s rare.
Thank you Neil. It’s the most amazing huge tree and I thought that I was going to have trouble finding the lichen, but there it was, loads of it, just at my height – perfect. Great that its still there.
