SD86 - 42 - SD8462a Xanthoria ucrainica:

Landmark Lichen 2:

On the road down to Settle from Airton - Black Gill Lane at the corner at little way above Scaleber, with a view to Attermire on the right, and on a clear day straight ahead, the Lake District:
by the gate you can see this golden lichen. (For a similar picture on a clear day  which includes the Lake District see the end of this post)

Growing on the flat top of a sandstone capstone beside the stone gate post is a delicate golden frilly lichen - with no golden jam tart apothecia - Xanthoria ucrainica

Same lichen, but with view towards Attermire: 

This is only the fourth time I have found it. This road is called Black Gill Lane.  Other places were all all tops of acid rock (near Rathmell, Near Helwith Bridge (though maybe out of the hectad), and just below  Cleatop Park.
Sorry fifth time. Just spotted a tiny bit in a photograph with some Physcia on the footpath at the farm above the Craven Arms, Giggleswick.

It is growing next to a Physcia caesia too  here, on Black Gill Lane.

Growing with Physcia caesia 

This is a view of the gate and Passing place sign from higher up the Lane 

The gate with the X ucrainica is growing at the lower "Passing Place" post, at the tip of the arrow in the centre distance.

The thallus lobes are fan shaped and have powdery blastidia round the edges. Blastidia are minute lumps that bulge of the main thallus. You can sometimes get one blastidium bulging off another.

Don't mistake it for Xanthoria parietina the extremely common golden yellow lichen that grows on our tree branches , walls and places that have lots of nutrients- which has lots of yellow apothecia - like marmalade jam tarts. It is VERY common.  The Xanthoria here is different and has a delicate frilly thallus.

It is hard to distinguish  Xanthoria ucrainca from the similar  Xanthoria candelaria  so sometimes they are lumped together and called Xanthoria candelaria senso lato (in the wide sense)  Xanthoria ucrainica has a very delicate frilly thallus, with powdery blastidia at the edges of  the thallus. Xanthoria candelaria sensu stricto.  tends to grow near the sea. It has not been found yet round Settle.

Both look similar to the Candelaria concolor. But the species of Xanthoria turn bright red/crimson when KOH (alkali) is applied, where as Candelaria concolour does not.

There is a good description of the differences of X. ucrainica and X. candelaria at LastDragon site The vertical lobes of the thallus are wider at the top and more fan shaped in X ucrainica. the lobes are very narrow in X candelaria

	X ucrainica	X candelaria
vertical lobes of thallus	fan shaped, overlapping	tall narrow
upper width of lobes	1mm	0.1-0.5mm
height of lobes	1.5mm tall	0.6-1.5mm tall
distribution	most common in UK	mainly coastal
size of blastidia	margins and undersurface budding rounded blastidia, 35–65 µm in diameter	20–35 µm in diameter (microscope),  some agglomerated into larger 'conblastidia', 40-110 µm
rhizines on lower surface:	none	none or few

One month later 2 km to the west and 100 m lower, at evening  time, (but now sunset is after 6pm) 

What do I find on top of a rock: More Xanthoria ucrainica.

View up to Black Gill - you can just see the white passing place sign where the  X ucrainica at the top of this post had been photographed.

View from Xanthoria ucrainica towards Cleatop Wood

Next to it is Lecanora rupicola - Yellow with K

 Xanthoria ucrainica



April 5th 2021: A really clear and cold day, with a wind from the north: I went and revisited the original site so that I could get a view of the Lake District:- See Xanthoria ucrainica on the wall beside the post- 

The arrow shows the gate