Forked Tube Lichen

Description:

Can be variable in appearance. White to light green on upper surface and black on the lower surface. Like it's namesake the stems are hollow tubes and are forked or branched. The olive green cups are reproductive structures called apothecia.

Habitat:

Spotted on a small branch on the ground in a mixed forest near Cle elum, Wa.

Notes:

So, fungal spores are produced by microscopic, baglike affairs (asci) covering the apothecium's inner concave surface. The spores germinate where they find a perfect environment, send out a wandering fungal strand that eventually finds cells of the right alga species, and starts growing around them. As both fungal and algal cells multiply and enmesh, the lichen takes form. The lichen also produces asexually with conidia or conidiospores, which can be thought of as more or less like dust particles coming off the fungus, thus producing new lichens with the same genetic makeup as the parent. Forked Tube Lichens are limited to North America's western coastal mountain ranges and the northern Rockies.