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Cladonia ochrochlora
Primary thallus: squamulose, persistent; squamules: 5-10 mm long, 2-5 mm wide, irregularly, crenate-lobate, esorediate or granularly sorediate; podetia: 15-52 mm tall, up to 4 mm wide, greenish gray, unbranched or sparingly dichotomously branched, subulate, developing cups at the apices; cups: shallow, irregular, 1-3 mm wide, corticated interiorly; surface: corticated below, usually completely sorediate in the upper half of their length; cortex: smooth, continuous from basal portions upwards, thinning above, becoming chinky-areolate and giving rise in places to discrete soralia; soralia: 0.5-1 mm diam., soredia: farinose to granular, but corticate patches and squamules (up to 5 mm long) sometimes occurring among soredia; Apothecia: infrequent, on cup margins, pale to dark brown; ascospores: ellipsoid to oblong, (8-) 14-16.5 x 2.5-6 micro meter; Pycnidia: frequent, on cup margins, ovoid, sometimes slightly constricted at base, with hyaline gelatin; conidia: 3-8 x 0.5-1 micro meter; Spot tests: K- or K+ dingy yellow to dingy brown, C-, KC-, P+ red, UV-; Secondary metabolites: fumarprotocetraric acid and accessory convirensic acid NOTE: Cladonia coniocraea and C. ochrochlora are morphologically very similar (some authorities are inclined to unite them.) I believe this is C ochrochlora based on (a) Cladonia coniocraea is usually found without cups, but C. ochrochlora rarely lacks them completely. (Note 2 or 3 cup-like formations) and (b) C. coniocraea is said to be found on wood, whereas this specimen was growing on a mossy rock. Other species easily confused with C. coniocraea (and therefore C. ochrochlora) include C. norvegica, C. bacilliformis, and C. macilenta
Habitat and ecology: on old wood or thin soil over rotting wood, also on moss covered rocks, particularly at damp sites World distribution: all continents except Antarctica
Add'l web refs: http://www.sharnoffphotos.com/lichensB/c... http://lichenportal.org/portal/taxa/inde... http://eol.org/pages/1013418/details http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cladon...
Spotted on Mar 23, 2013
Submitted on Mar 26, 2013
5 Comments
This shows you how sharp I am: I've been to that Web site and never made the connection between the site and the book. :(
One of the web sites that I find so helpful is Sharnoff's :)
Thanks for responding. I'm always looking to learn something new. There's an amazing book called Lichens of North America, by Brodo, Sharnoff and Sharnoff. It's a huge, massive book, with ID keys and beautiful photographs of over 1,000 species of lichen. It's over $100 on Amazon.com, but years ago I picked up a copy for less than half that. I haven't taken the time to learn the microanatomy of lichens well enough to use the keys, but I've ID'd some from pictures and descriptions. I look forward to your future spottings.
Thanks drP! I have been lucky enough to find several really good websites with lots of images and thorough descriptions to compare. I'm learning that there are a lot of morphologically identical species that differ only at the molecular/chemical level - especially the Cladonias! But it's just very intellectually interesting to me to try to solve the puzzle!
Love all your lichens. I hope to learn to ID more of the ones in my area. How do you figure them out?