The Rainforest Fund Project: February 2026

#Earlier posts: Part 1: Friday 30 Jan - Settle to Carlisle; and first day

See Part 2: Saturday: AGM & Conference (to be written)

Part 3: Field Trip and journey home. (This post)

10am Carlisle Cremetorium boundary with Carlisle Cemetery - Fay introduces the morning's instructions in respectful tone..

Kiar meanwhile glaces at lichens on the adjacent seat

then we all pose for the group photo

Then we are off to the cemetery proper with graves stones.

What better place to start than one with Psilolechia lucida - well know for liking acid stones and can grow in underhangs

On the side they are looking at is Physconia - grisea or enteroxanthaEnteroxantha. Janet ? John suggests enteroxamtha. It is supposed to have bottle-brush rhizines underneath at the centre of the thallus, though can have simple ones at the edge. Janet cuts of the edge of the thallus to reveal rhizines below. Still don't look very bottle brushy to me -

Closer up of Physconia

THey are now looking at the Psilechia side - and the Physconia is in view
at the top to us at the centre of the picture.
See the tarmac path behind them - we'll be looking at that three pcitures belwo

Umm..

Lecidia lithophila

John lies down n the tarmac to record common things like Physcia caseia and Lecanora muralis then points to this white lichen - Porpidia crustulata - separated in Dobson from Porpidai macroacrap by size of apothecia - less than 103 mm comes to P crustulata - but he takes a sample home to check.

See the white crustose lichen..

Hope Paul will come back with a suggestion for this.

Placopyrenium fuscellum

portable digital microscope

Back for lunch at 12.

Lecanora crenularia on cement between the slate slabs on the wall.

After lunch I search the group of people I had been with initially, but they have gone. I use the map provided at the Crematorium and set off walking north.. and come to the Dissenters Chapel, The roof facing north had big colonies of Rhizocarpon geographicum and there is Porpidia tuberculosa on the butresses below.

In the bricks and cement on the right I see lots of apothecia

I think this is Lecanora albescens - but I really wish I had tested ti with C to make sure it is not L antiqua. Too late now.

No Rhizocarpon geographicum on the south facing side

View west from this chapel

To the north of this chapel is a low tombstone with a sloping roof, with two interesting lichens - see tomb in foreground:-

On the west facing side there is abundant Cladonia polydactyla.

This is a Cladonia with red apothecia,

Cladonia polydactyla

More Cladonia polydactyla - podetia often branched, hornlike and usually proliferating from the rim of a deformed cup. Primary squamules bluish grey with incised tips.

On the east facing slope - making flat space between the moss and the foliose lichen are patches of a crustose lichen

See the patches above, between the moss and the grey foliose lichen

Well this is one lichen I will have to think about.

Still thinking..

----------------------

Fay gives me a lift back to the station. Here I meet Joseph Halda, also waiting for a train. He buys me a coffee and we sat on the station picnic tables.

I catch the 3:20 train. I enjoy views on the way home. Down there is the meandering river Eden.. The base for the coming BLS spring meeting this 11-18 April. Above is the Pennine ridge - Dufton Pike - and other Hills above High Cup Nick .. Somewhere just beyond there is the site of Moor House a YNU trip to be held there in 1-2 Aug There are patches of snow on the tops. The train travels higher and we near the summit where the rive Swale captures catchment from the River Ure. Weird to see "Dent", "Sheffield" and "Nottingham" - on the train announcement panel. But we pass Garsdale, Dent, Horton in Ribblesdale.. and I get off at Settle.

......just after 5 and get to my car - safely there - but now adorned with 15 huge bird droppings!!. I look up:- Not just tree branches above but also telephone / electric wires. I look down:- the dark tarmac.. not sure if I could see droppings .. but maybe one or two lichens - like those on the crematorium path earlier in the day. I will come back in the daylight on a warm day and check them!!.

I park my car in the near Settle Railway Station at 6:05 am ready for the 6:23 train to Carlisle on the Friday morning 30 January. The British Lichen Society (BLS) has a conference each year at the end of January - but usually far away in London or in Edinburgh. Fantastic this time that I can just get on the train and be there in less than two hours.

Will my car be safe till my return? Will the train be running? The station master is in his office 6:10 am!

I chat to the one other person waiting for the train - in the northbound waiting room - he is going to work - to serve in the law courts at Carlisle! The train arrives on time.

I eat my packed breakfast at 6:45. I eat my lunch at 7:45 (yellow label miso salmon salad bowl), just as it is beginning to get light. I am now further west and further north than Settle, so it takes longer to get light.. It is dark, but I remembr former trips on the line with Althea.

I arrive at Carlisle at 8.10.

I explore the big Marks and Spencers, which fortunately opened at 8am. Hmm.. this year's fashion seems to be black, cream, grey and occasionally brown and khaki. Rather subdued colours. Trousers come in every width and length. .. I am sure these can be matched by ancient clothes in my wardrobe.

Almost next door is the hotel where I will be booking into in the evening: The Crown and Mitre. I enter and find Eluned (Pronounced eelinned, or lynn) and several other members of the Lichen Society eating breakfast. I am able to join them for very welcome coffee and a slice of toast. It is a big spacious hotel.

Ever so close, just past the red sandstone Cathedral is Tullie House Museum. The museum is closed to the public for decorating etc, but is open for our conference. I take my "Churchyard Lichen-trail" leaflets to the display room where Eric is starting to assemble the displays.

At 10am we have our "Education and Promotions Committee" meeting - about 8 of us at a board table assembled round a microphone and camera and looking at a big screen where 9th member of the committee, Heather, joins us by Zoom. April chairs the meeting.

Then at 12:15, our meeting over, I return to the display room. More people are arriving. I meet a new member Mike from Lincolnshire, who tells me about the McVities Factory, less than a mile away (Less than half a mile it turns out) where one can buy a huge bag of assorted biscuits for £4:00. But it closes at 4pm he warns.

In the afternoon Council meet. I used to be on Council, and have served my time. But it is great to say hello to some of them. (and have a sandwich) So now I am free to explore Carlisle.

First a glance at the red sandstone wall on the street outside Tullie House. NY39775598 : Caloplaca citrina senso lat, Trapelia coarctata, sheets of Tortula muralis, and somethng I suspect is Acarospora smaragdula. Can I ask one of the experts later to help me confirm it? Enchylium tenax perhaps var ceranoides or var tenax. And Xanthoria parietina on the metal railings.

Tullie House is a grade 1 listed building AND ..The walls, gate and railings in front of the house on Abbey Street are separately Grade I listed

On return from the meeting I see just now that there are NO records at all from the monad containing the gate of Tullie Garden NY3955. So I will enter my records. The rest of the garden is in NY3956 which has one record. You can guess which species that is..

Off I set to the McVities factory. This involved crossing the main road/dual carriage way by a footbridge at the site of the Carlisle city wall, near the Castle. I met Pat Wolsley coming down the steps, going to the meeting.

I buy my biscuits. They turn out to be individual packs of three biscuits - and in date for a year - so will last a long time. On the way back I call in at the Salvation Army Collection point and shop to see if they have any swimming costumes for sale (there is a swimming bath at the hotel) They don't. I ticked off a couple of species on the bridge over the river Caldew. to add to NY3956

This river will shortly join the River Eden in Carlisle. The Caldew I discover starts on the north slope of Skiddaw, and runs near Caldbeck and past Dalston before arriving here. A similar name to the River Calder in south Yorkshire that runs through Hebden Bridge where we held out autumn BLS Field meeting just four months ago.

I check the lichens on the Tullie House garden wall again. And go inside and dump my heavy bags of biscuits. 4pm. Just time to go to "THE BOOKSHOP"

Memories of this bookshop came back to me from the previous AGM held here c 8 years ago. A treasure trove - a labyrinth of underground passages lined from floor to ceiling with.. books.

It is still there.. as enchanting as ever. As they start switching of the lights of closing time I finally settle on two new books - on by One entitled " Gut" updated in 2025 - Lichens are a symbiotic association of algae and fungi. I ama a symbiotic association of my cells and the bacteria in my gut.. So why not find out more!! It is written in a lively style. I later discover Graham Boswell bought one on the origin of language. I wonder what other BLS members bought.

We then have half an hour to look at the displays.. and meet other members

I hold up the Horton in Ribblesdale Churchyard Lichen Trail

and show it to BLS Conservation Officer Neil Sanderson
Behind is a display of the photos entered for the Photographic competion

Once they started serving drinks we left the exhibition..

Once they started serving drinks we left the exhibition..

Fay introduces the guest speaker Nicholas Carter

Nicholas Carter tells us about the lichens on surfaces including quotes from historical characters and poems. His tutor at one time had been Marjorie Sweeting.