SD86 -13a - SD8163 - Ribble south of Settle - Xanthoria calcicola - Marmalade Lichen 4

Continuing with the marmalade lichen theme ..

Warning:

thismay or may not be Xanthoria calcicola - I sent pictures to the BLX twitter account and they said 

Wouldn’t really like to call it as it doesn’t look typical and looks as though there has been a lot of munching going on. Could be worth revisiting to check when it’s had a chance to regrow (if it does!)

SO maybe I'll go and have a look another year.

But all the rest of the Xanthoria parietina in this area has lots of apothecia and this has none - and there are big areas of orange lichen on this wall.

Xanthoria calcicola

98 percent of the big orange lichens people notice around Settle are either Xanthoria parietina (95%) and Caloplaca flavescens (maybe 3%).

The former grows on trees and walls and anywhere where there is a good supply of "nitrogen fertilizer" . The latter grows on limestone rocks and walls.

But there are others foliose marmalade coloured lichens

My lockdown walk from Settle on 25 June took me along the public footpath from Station Road to the Ribble, through the field to the first wall where the is an open gateway (no gate) and a stile-with-gate next to it . The dry stone wall is made of a mixture of acid and basic rocks. 

Here I found Xanthoria calcicola- SD812631, (See bottom centre of picture)

The BLS distribution map shows it has been found in our area before.

X calcicola looks like Xanthoria parietina - but is much less likely to have the abundant yellow jam tart apothecia. It is also a slightly darker orange.

The contorted lobules of the thallus are supposed to have coarse, coralloid, wart-like isidia. I could not see any in the field, but I scraped some of the thallus off and mounted it on cardboard with copydex, and looked at it carefully, and lo, I saw some isidia

More pictures

-to show location of gateway (top left)





and a bit more of the wall, as seen from the X cacicola location

Xanthoria calcicola -20 May