Shield Lichen

Description:

Coming out of winter, I'm still in my newly found lichen-mode... so this should be another Parmelia or Parmelina lichen. Large foliose thallus, reaching about 20cm in length; with metallic grey to blue-grey lobes, becoming brown towards margins. It produces a multitude of powdery or button-like, blue-black isidia - and I saw no apothecia. Underneath is clear coloured, with edges of lobes often covered in brownish hair-like rhizines - which I failed to photograph.

Habitat:

I found these on wooden hence posts along a myriade of other lichens; a hence surrounding an agricultural storage yard, just next to a protected montane stream in Jura mountain range; on edges of mixed (oak, beech, spruce and fir) forest growing on slopes.

Notes:

I suspect this one to be Parmelina (or Parmelia) pastillifera.