Chapel le Dale - Peltigera horizontalis and Peltigera praetextata

 Not all Dog Lichens are the same.

A delightful pre New Year walk with Doris Cairns along a road / track through a mossy wood / limestone pavement, near Chapel le Dale, with moss covered walls and pavement reveals two new ones on 30 December

My natural reaction to a big Dog Lichen is "It must be Peltigera membranacea" - especially as the two we find today both have a thallus that was not flat, but slightly  buckled / rugose / or using the the technical term,  bullate.

Both are growing straggling over moss growing over limestone rocks and a limestone wall - and in an area that must be sheltered and moist by the amount of moss growing on the trees and rocks. 

Both look magical with frost crystals twinkling round the margin of the thallus.

They are Peltigera horizontalis and Peltigera praetextata

1. Peltigera horizontalis

Inspection of the under surface that evening shows

The rhizines are brushlike (Dobson says rope like)

The rhizines are dark brown

The rhizines are arranged in concentric rings

The undersurface is pale at the margin and pale between the dark veins

The trunk of an oak tree near a cattle grid has some Pertusaria pertusa growing on it

2. Peltigera praetextata

"P praetextata has grey  brown,  often dense, scale like isidia along the margins and on any cracks on the thallus"

The rhizines in Peltigera praetextata are relatively simply. They are not branched and not like brushes.

Homeward bound

More Lichens Posts

SD86 - 20 - SD8260 - Long Preston Moor - Gritstone wall, wooden gate and willow tree lichens

Pseudevernia furfuracea - growing on exposed gritstone walltop  - that would have had more SO2 pollution on the past.

SD86 - Hectad (10km by 10 hm) - Settle, N Yorks

Year Three of surveying Lichens in hectad SD86

i.e. I am starting my third 1km x 10 km strip of 10 monads, at SD8260 

Starting it three days early (Dec 28) to get a good start for 2021

On a bright sunny afternoon with a light sprinkling of snow on the higher ground. 

A link to the first post in this SD86 project at Rathmell at SD806O - explains the project So far I have seen a total of between 114 and 118 different species (need to sort all my data carefully). If I can record 18 species in a monad, then the map can be shaded yellow for that monad.  (or pale orange if I record 29 species)

Location:  "Long Preston Moor" - where the tarmac ends as you drive up Edge Lane from Long Preston

This is a long narrow triangle of heather and purple moor grass on either side of the lane. the walls are millstone grit. Several other people are out walking 273m 896ft above sea level. SD82826008

The available habits are:-

1. Millstone grit walls, 

2. Wooden gate,  

3.Three trees/bushes. The willow tree is quite productive lichen wise.

1.Wooden Gate:

Fuscidea lightfootii is shining bright green on the old wooden gate - moist from the melting snow,  and reflecting the light of the low sun shinning directly at the vertical gate bars.

2. Millstone grit walls,

I was happy to find two new species, and several others of interest to me: Pseudevernia furfuracea on the grit capstones of the wall (and Platismatia glauca, and near the bottom of the wall Fuscidea cyathodes ; 

There are also two unknown species.

3. Willow Tree

A hawthorn bus, a very small rowan and this small willow tree seem to be the only trees in this part of the monad, and the Willow is the most lichen diverse. Parmotrema perlatum with its smooth pastel green thallus , powdery soredia along its curley edges, and a few dark cilia sticking out at the edges is worth a photograph.

It had Ramalina farinacea and Ramalina fastigiata.

1. The Gate and Wall

The gate

Fuscidea lightfootii on the gate

Fuscidea lightfootii on gate and on nearby wall.

2. The Millstone Grit Wall

Pseudevernia furfuracea ssp furfuracea (because bleach on the medulla did not go pink).

Pertusaria corallina - 
Two chemicals applied - left NaOH, right bleach. The NaOH did very slowly turn orange. (But it did not turn red quickly)

Fuscidea cyathoides

Here are two mystery lichens growing on the top part of the wall 

The first is the same as the lichen I found on the sandstone wall outside Settle Swimming Pool: It has a white/pale grey thallus and  greeny yellow soredia.  And a dark prothallus. 

I have applied two chemicals - NaOH near my finger tip and bleach centre right - the latter has turned red.

The second looks a bit like Pertusaria pertusa but I am not sure.

3. The Willow Tree:

Below:

Willow tree, cars in distance, two people returning home after walk

Parmotrema perlatum

Parmotrema perlatum

Nice view over the Purple Moor-grass and snow.

 

The moon was rising above Ryeloaf Hill, whilst ... 

The gate

whilst .. looking i the opposite direction.. the sun was setting above the Forest of Bowland, its light reflecting in the the flooded areas of Long Preston Deeps.

Looking down from near the car to Long Preston Deeps.

15:37 and it is still light on 28 Dec

Happy New year

More Lichens Posts

Settle Wildflowers - Day 100 - Happy Christmas - Red 21, White 21 - Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, Goat Willow & Hairy Tare

Happy Christmas.

Christmas Day .

Day 100 and the Last Day of the Settle Wildflower Blog.   Pheeww!

- for this year...

Yet still more species are appearing.

Thank  you all for following.

Thank you for your greetings when our physical walks around Settle cross.

I thought by December  the Lockdowns would have ceased.

Who knows what will happen in January?

Looking back - I enjoyed 

• the relative peace on the roads, especially in April and May.. it was heaven!!
  
  
• discovering new corners of the area in the two mile radius of Langcliffe and of Settle.  I am still discovering more hidden jewels.
  
  
• keying out "Garden Escapes" - plants that I would have ignored before, that I would not have considered wild.  It is important that we record them so that we can have a record to see if any are spreading and becoming wild.

288 species of Wildflower have been recorded.  That leaves 12 short of 300.  There are three "Missing Days" to complete from Summer, from when I was finding and photographing flowers faster than I could write about them..  I  hope to find days in January to complete these. Then there will be 300 species.

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Christmas Day -Today's species: (Photographed on 20 and 24 and 25 December):

Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, & Hairy Tare - (late flowerers)
   and Goat Willow (super early)

I have been "saving" Herb Robert for months, specially for today. Bright crimson and jolly.

I know there are always a few Herb Roberts left in December. It is joined by two other species on my walk on 20th Dec (still out now) - I also photographed all three in  summer:

Herb Robert, Red Dead Nettle, & Hairy Tare

Herb Robert Geranium robertianum

On Christmas Day, after singing carols round the Langcliffe Fountain, then attending Service at Settle Methodist Church I went up the street above the market pace to look for the Red Dead nettle (see lower) at the same place I found more Herb Robert

 

Red Dead Nettle - Lamium purpureum

This grows on Constitution Hill, quite a way up from the Coop.

I saw it when we played carols last Tuesday and I walked that way round to try and generate some heat... but I didn't have my camera then.. I return on Christmas Day

View standing at the Red Dead-Nettle Site

View from the Red Dead Nettle Site

  

See how the fruit have four lobes like a hot cross bun
- this is a feature of the dead-nettle family

Hairy Tare: Vicia hirsuta

Photographed on 20 Dec (and still there on 24th)

 And Guess what - 

this is a new BSBI record for Hectad SD86 !!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently it used to be a cornfield weed in the 19th C. But no cornfields around here, at least, not now.

It is growing in the same place that I discovered it exactly six months ago on 25th June - I remember that hot day and walk by the river - 

I was on a pink (red) run then -  so left this white flower.. did not realise it would take a whole 6 months to get there.

25 June 2020

25 June 2020

Hairy Tare - Vicia hirsuta - 25 June 2020 - growing beside wall with the lichen Caloplaca crenularia - medium grey areolate thallus with bright dark orange/brick red apothecia. 

Hairy Tare - Vicia hirsuta - 25 June 2020 

A sign of the spring to come:

On 24 December  I saw some Hazel Catkins- almost out: (But then I did record Hazel fully out/over back in April)

Goat Willow - Salix caprea

On 20 December I photographed the Goat Willow tree in Ashfield Car Park - with the Pussy Willow Catkins just starting to show:

Goat Willow on the left, Settle Social Club in the centre and "Weeping Ash" on the right

The leaves on the ground - big and wide and slightly woolly underneath show it is Goat Willow

What is hiding on the twig, under the bud?

Ah look closely - Aphids

Aphids with their parthenogenic young - 

Christmas Day - Goat Willow on Left

Christmas Day Goat Willow Catkin.
Willow buds just have one leaf scale.

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Below are pictures I took on the morning of the 24th - in Langcliffe churchyard and just outside.

 the bright sun shining horizontally toward the walls makes for bright colours.

No time to write about them now.

Maybe I will have to write a post 100b

Ah there are just TOO many delightful plants and lichens and animals!!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Click here for the  Settle Lockdown Wildflower Walks