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Project Noah Nature School
Physcia stellaris
A grey folios lichen with cup-shaped fruiting bodies (apothecia). The insides of the cups showed slight convexity and were distinctly black.
On a dead fallen silver birch branch
Looks similar to my previous spotting. However, the thallus around these black cups were more greyish than green. The cups appeared to have shorter "stalks" and were more densely packed together. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/937... ( F.rutidota) - very interesting looking lichen. Thanks to Arlanda for suggesting an ID for this spotting
Spotted on Mar 5, 2012
Submitted on Mar 6, 2012
9 Comments
Thanks Emma - will move it
Leaba, Lichen is categorized as "other"
Katherine, the apothecia were anything from .5 to 4mm. I'll leave this as P.stellaris for now and hope I'll come across resource that can confirm this. Need to be certain, given the geological and ecological history of Australia.
The Atlas of Living Australia only lists P.stellaris as occurring here:
http://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/t...
I'm afraid I couldn't tell you about its occurance in Australia (I'm from Canada). It is possible that it is Physcia stellaris, I've just never seen stellaris have apothecia that dark before, but I could be wrong. What was the diameter of the cups? Closer to 1mm or 4mm?
KatherineD, thanks for the suggestion. Would you be able to explain further about the occurrence of this particular species in Australia - I can't find any information from resources that I have checked this far. Also, have a look at this link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49147273@N0...
I will keep looking - have one more place to check !
I would say Physcia milllegrana, the apothecia look too big and dark for Physcia stellaris.
Thank you Arlanda. They do look similar. I believe that the Physcia stellaris found in Australia and New Zealand are very different to those in the northern hemisphere ... now I am wondering about my other Lichen-1 - maybe it belongs to Physiaceae too like this one. They were found on the same branch and in the one patch.
Check Physcia stellaris, looks very similar