Psilolechia-lucida

Psilolechia lucida is  sometime know as Sulphur Dust Lichen or 

Lemon-coloured Rock Lichen

The Lichens in Churchyards Aidgap Leaflet has a picture of Psilolechia lucida at the beginning as an example of a lichen on an acid rock

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

To Quote Last Dragon:

Thallus a thin to granular, powdery, yellow-green to sulphur yellow crust, in places thicker and irregularly cracked; apothecia rare, very small, yellow-green to orange. Common throughout Britain, often in somewhat shaded situations, generally on base-poor rock,

Go to Settle Parish Church churchyard, to this big box tombstone marked by the red arrow. Then go to the gravestone to the left of it 

There is a little bit of bright lemon green Psilolechia in a groove (top right) on the tombstone to the left -See below

Here seen close up:-

There is also some Psilolechia at the courtyard of Malham Tarn House

Porpidia tuberculosa - Cigarette Ash Lichen

 Learn your Lichens 9 

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

Porpidia tuberculosa can form big grey (white-to pale blue grey) patches on acid rocks in church yards. Looking closely with a hand lens there are dark blue-grey almost silvery soredia. The edge of the thallus (the prothallus) is dark.

Here is is in Settle churchyard.

I spent hours going back to this tombstone hoping to photograph it in the sunlight.. but the trees to the south shaded it until the sun finally set behind the railway viaduct.


I'm calling this the "Big block grave". It has lots of Porpidai tuberculosa on its roof. 
The tombstone 3   along to the left has Porpidia tuberculosa too too.

Look at the top rim of the gravestone one to the left of the big block grave:

Here is the top rim of this gravestone

The lichen with the arrow is Lecanora soralifera. The one below it, next to the finger is Porpidia tuberculosa.

Here is a video of this tombstone (the one to left of the large block tombstone as at the top of this post)

Here it is in Ingleton, St Mary's Church 
Round the back of the church is a big colony on the church wall

 Porpidia tuberculosa. -  a very big patch. - below same species close up.

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

Porpidia tuberculosa - Cigarette Ash Lichen

 Learn your Lichens 9 

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

Porpidia tuberculosa can form big grey (white-to pale blue grey) patches on acid rocks in church yards. Looking closely with a hand lens there are dark blue-grey almost silvery soredia. The edge of the thallus (the prothallus) is dark.

Here is is in Settle churchyard.

I spent hours going back to this tombstone hoping to photograph it in the sunlight.. but the trees to the south shaded it until the sun finally set behind the railway viaduct.




The tombstone 3 (actually 4)  along to the left has Porpidia tuberculosa too too.

Here it is in Ingleton, St Mary's Church 
Round the back of the church is a big colony on the church wall

 Could this be Porpidia tuberculosa? seems a very big patch. - below same species close up.

This video includes Porpidia tuberculosa

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

Porpidia tuberculosa - Cigarette Ash Lichen

 Learn your Lichens 9 

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

Porpidia tuberculosa can form big grey (white-to pale blue grey) patches on acid rocks in church yards. Looking closely with a hand lens there are dark blue-grey almost silvery soredia. The edge of the thallus (the prothallus) is dark.

Here is is in Settle churchyard.

I spent hours going back to this tombstone hoping to photograph it in the sunlight.. but the trees to the south shaded it until the sun finally set behind the railway viaduct.




The tombstone 3 (actually 4)  along to the left has Porpidia tuberculosa too too.

Here it is in Ingleton, St Mary's Church 
Round the back of the church is a big colony on the church wall

 Could this be Porpidia tuberculosa? seems a very big patch. - below same species close up.

Learn your Lichens Series 1. Arthonia radiata 2. Caloplaca flavovirescens 3. Acrocordia conoidea 4. Squamarina cartilaginea 5. Xanthoria parietina 6. Lecanora gangaleoides 7. Physcia tenella 8. Lepraria incana 9. Porpidia tuberculosa 10. Psilolechia lucida 11. Lecanora soralifera  12. Opegrapha gyrocarpa

YNU Meeting at Colt Park - incl - Klebsormidium crenulatum

The YNU Vice County 64 Field Meeting held at Ingleborough  on 20 August 2016 had weather designed to cancel out the three hot sunny days earlier in the week.


Actually the venue- Colt Park Barn - Natural England - was an excellent base. It meant that those who wanted to, could stay indoors in the afternoon, using microscopes if necessary, to look up details about the plants and animals we had found.
On the left is Derek Whiteley who had come up from Sorby Natural History Society

I even made a start at listing the mosses I had brought back in a bag... and was informed that the tiny woodlouse (c 4mm long) I had  found in my Philinotis fontana (moss) was in fact Trichoniscus pusillus the Common Soil Woodlouse, which is the commonest woodlouse in Britain. 
We (well Roger Neale) also found the Rosy Woodlouse Androniscus dentiger which is pink, up to 6mm long and is much less common and lives in lime rich conditions - from caves to brickwork.

Our group had restricted our botanical recording to a small area that had recently been fenced off to protect newly planted native trees beside a steep streamlet.    The thicker soil had Heather (Calluna vulgaris)  and Green-ribbed Sedge (Carex binervis); other areas had calcareous flushes with Bird's-eye Primrose (Primula farinosa), Lesser Clubmoss (Selaginella) and Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris).


We found Bristle Clubrush (Isolepis setacea)  about 100 m to the north of the fenced off area, where the path crosses a parallel gill.
This may be the first record for that field

Klebsormidium crenulatum

On the return to the barn we passed through a gate at the top of the field. the wall there was made of sandstone.. and many of the stones had Klebsormidium crenulatum  -  the filamentous green alga that is increasing in Britain due to increased nitrogen oxides in the air. (See my other records of Klebsormidium)

Agrostis canina - Velvet Bent

Velvet Bent has a typical Agrostis "Christmas tree panicle with tiny spikelets", but the spikelets usually have awns  (Use a lens).  The leaves are narrow, usually less than 2mm wide, and the ligules are long and narrow. 

The emerging leaf is rolled and hairless (as in nearly all other Agrostis species)

Agrostis canina grows in damp/wet low nutrient places, - often with rushes.  

It has stolons with several shoots growing at each node- so the shoots and leaves are slender and tiny. With so many shoots and leaves growing close together it looks like velvet.

It is easier to observe this late in the summer, when the stolons with their side shoots have had time to grow.

A. canina at Thornton Ellers (Lower Derwent Valley NNR)
20 July 2016

A. canina at Thornton Ellers

Comparison with similar species:- 

Agrostis stolonifera also has stolons. It has one side shoot per stolon node, and its blades are usually greater than 2mm wide, whereas:

  Agrostis canina has several shoots per stolon node and the blades are less than 2mm wide.

A. canina at Straloch Moraine, Kindrogan July 2016,
growing amongst rushes.

Closer view

From my experience the panicles are often a little more  open than the extremely similar panicles of Agrostis vinealis.
However A vinealis has short rhizomes, with about 3 white scales on the rhizome before it turns upwards and forms a new  green leafy shoot.

Agrostis vinealis - Brown Bent

.

Wild June 2106 - Day 2

2nd June: Resurfacing the road in Craven.

Well, watching them is an outside activity. And without roads we would find it much harder to access parts of the countryside. So well done to the men doing this hard work.

They "taped over the drain cover. then once the 

road tarrers had gone they peeled of the tape and revealed the cover,

Wild June 2016 - Day 1

Day 1 of Do Something Wild every day in June finds me at Selside helping people from Manchester University carry out research..
1st June - wearing ski jacket, heavy waterproof jacket and leggings under thick trousers
Look at the angle of the grass stems.
http://www.mylocalweather.org.uk/ribblehead/ showed that that night the next morning the apparent temperature was less than 0 degrees due to the wind chill factor.

One of the functions of the experiment is to investigate the effect of drought on vegetation and soils.

Wild-flowers of Malham Tarn talk - 1 June

Almost 400 species of wildflower can be found on Malham Tarn Estate:- 

Out of a total of about 1600-2000 species in Britain, depending on whether you split species such as dandelions, hawkweeds, brambles etc). 

So we have 1/5 to /1/4 the British flora at Malham Tarn.

Malham Tarn - perched over 1000ft above sea level, on the backbone of England, at the water divide 
between the Ribble (going the the west coast), and 
the Aire and the Wharfe going to the East Coast.

J (red waistcoat) showing leaflet after talk

I have made an illustrated leaflet (10 sides apart from front and back cover) showing the wildflowers in bloom in June near the board walk at Malham Tarn Fen, and my talk would include some pictures from these.

Malham Tarn area is an SSSI and a National Nature Reserve and a Ramsar Site and a SAC (Special Area of Conservation  = Site of European importance). I would be able to show people in Settle some of its features.


I would also be able to use the presentation at the long weekend course I am running at Malham Tarn Field Centre on "Wild Flowers" - starting  Fri 3 June.

This is the third year I have held a "Wild flowers talk" at St John's Church Hall, Settle - with the joint aim of
a) raising money for the Rainforest Fund
b) sharing knowledge and enthusiasm about local wildlife and wild places.

The rest of this post is about how the talk went (not the content of the talk)

I did not know how many people to expect. Due to other commitments I had not had time to publicise it in the local paper; Also it clashed with an outdoor Craven Conservation Group Meeting, so one or two people who might have come would be going to that.
But it was featured in the Flowers of the Dales Booklet, and I had put up posters in the usual best places in Settle. And emailed friends on my "Events around Settle" list.

So I turned up at 6.30 with all the equipment and boxes and loaded them into the Large Meeting Room.  I was thinking, "I wonder, if no-one comes, then perhaps I can invite the Line Dancers meeting in the large hall (7.30pm on Wednesdays - excellent fun, exercise and "Trucking" type music)  - to come and watch a short show in their Tea break."

But I was really pleased with how the whole evening went: - So thank you everyone who came:-

1. Two people (on holiday) came very early - which was encouraging - I knew it would run.. there would be people!!

2. In the end there were 14 people.- The was a great size because it meant we were a small enough group for everyone to be introduced to each other, and learn each others names and to have lively conversations amongst each other over coffee afterwards... But big enough to raise a little profit for the rainforest.

Three sets of two people on holiday, including one university student studying conservation.
Two (newish) tutors from Malham Tarn Field Centre
 Four sets of friends/contacts who had learned of it through my "Events around Settle" News email, or through my telling them.

Everyone had been to the Tarn before - in two cases on Field Courses 20 and 50 years ago.

I am grateful to:
1. The Flowers of the Dales booklet and publicity for giving me the incentive to run the talk at all
2. Settle Tourist Office (which is how one set of people found out)
3. The people at St John's who maintain the building, rooms, and facilities enabling me to hold the talk. 
4. The fact that the Digital Projector worked straight off.
5. Modern technology.. meaning that when I emailed the friend the day before to ask if I could borrow the digital projector .. only to discover  that - whoo oh  - she was in Cyprus..  that she told me how to access a key and get the projector from her house.



I sold several of my rainforest cards.  I also sold two copies of "Wildflowers on the Edge", at cost price, having just ordered five copies for the wild flowers course I am teaching at Pateley Bridge.

And we raised (after expenses for hall, tea etc) £50 - which can save half an acre of rainforest!!  Thank you all.

Here is the poster advertising the event:-