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Bullseye Lichen

Placopsis scripta

Description:

This is a species known from several localities around the Gulf of Alaska. The lichenologists working on a paper about this new species asked me to send some samples, and when I did I was told this was Placopsis scripta.

It is easy to see where the common name of this genus comes from: the cephalodia are rather large and usually at the center of a circular thallus. One clump on this boulder, however, was very disorganized looking in comparison to the others, which are shown here in photos 3 & 4. Cephalodia are brown to gray and the thallus is a pale grayish white to cream. In the last photo you can see an odd greenish patch, which I think is some sort of lichenicolous fungus.

Habitat:

On a large boulder in a parking lot on Near Island. There are only a couple buildings here and no homes to this small island adjacent to Kodiak. The air quality must be pretty good too, because the rocks and trees in this little parking lot were loaded with different lichens.

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2 Comments

Machi
Machi 4 years ago

Thanks Maria! Hopefully after they write their paper I can put a species name to this spotting.

Maria dB
Maria dB 4 years ago

It is very cool that you are sending samples to scientists working on these lichen. Citizen science is a wonderful way to contribute!

Machi
Spotted by
Machi

Kodiak, Alaska, USA

Spotted on Nov 7, 2019
Submitted on Dec 4, 2019

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