daphne stone wrote:
Hi Roger,

I'd be pretty careful with your Usnea species. U subfloridana is around but not particularly common. First, check and see if the medulla is UV+. Cut several places on main branches, parallel to the length, right in to the axis, so you have half of the inside showing. Put that under short wave UV and see if it jumps out as strong blueish white. If not, you most likely don't have U subfloridana. If that is the case, look carefully at the structure (cigar-shaped connections of branches, isidia and/or soredia, soralia shape, CMA - see McCune's book)) and see where you can get in the key. good luck - Usnea is a difficult genus!
Best, Daphne

Hi Daphne,

I don't have a UV light yet, but it's on my wish list.

Besides McCune & Geiser, I am using Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria online, as well as Sharnoff's photo site to keep things on the careful side.

I'm working through MPNW key again. My example has a few branches with constricted bases, but by-and-large the branches are uniform. The CMA images have only 2 longitudinal sections that resemble my example; U. wasmuthii & U. subfloridana.

In a couple weeks I should have materials for P test as well as a USB microscope, so I will keep working this Usnea.

On the U. subfloridana 'not particularly common' note, I notice that Bruce says in the key that U. wasmuthii is rare in Washington too. I will not be surprised to find unusual lichens at the preserve as we have over half-a-dozen vascular plants that are endangered, threatened, rare, or unusual. While folks have been working the vascular plants here for over 20 years and new finds continue, no one has listed the fungi or lichens yet so I'm keen to jump on it.

Thanks for the help Daphne -I need all I can get- and by all means please pass on any further insights.  :)

Steve Sheehy wrote:

Roger, waysofenlichenment.com is a good source of pictures also.

 

Roger that Steve; thanks! Another nice source I found last week is Encyclopedia of Life. There doesn't appear to be a lichen section per se, but entering a species in the search brings up photos and details of morphology, distribution maps, and references.

Here's the page at EOL for Hypogymnia physodes, which I just added to my list and the gallery. http://eol.org/pages/196270/details  

Daphne, I'm not particularly looking for hard, rather I'm just looking at what I find in one particular area. Thanks for the invite! I expect I will be pretty busy then so I'll have to pass. Should you , et al, get a wild hair to visit the preserve, I can arrange that. ;)

So I did get the plugable microscope and in looking at the Usnea more I'm just not seeing the 'cigar' shape in the branches. I captured a new image of the holdfast & lower branches with the scope and put it in the Gallery:  http://northwest-lichenologists.wildapricot.org/resources/SiteAlbums/1816539/Usnea%20subfloridana17b.jpg

The crack at the base of the left-most stem is a nice exposure for the CMA and I'll be reviewing images in Microlichens. In this new image the medulla and axis appear about the same thickness and I think in my original longitudinal section that I didn't cut through the medulla far enough to expose the axis.

I hope it isn't a major faux pas to mention fungi, but I'm gonna risk it. :-O In February I found a bracket fungus which I identified as Daedalea quercina, or Oak Mazegill. I checked with the university and they think I may be right, however they say I need to revisit the site to get some host-wood specimens for ID and to track the growth. Apparently this species is rare west of the Mississippi and only known from California and Oregon. Photos available if welcomed. :D

Bruce McCune wrote:

This is just a guess, but the growth form in your original photo (with profuse long fibrils and otherwise sparse branching) is typical of Usnea silesiaca, a.k.a. U. madeirensis.

Mmmm...at one point I had ruled out Group 2 in the key because I saw my example as bushy and not pendulous. I then realized that I didn't actually know the orientation of the branch on the tree before it fell, so my example may be pendulous. :-O

Now re-reading the key for U. silesiaca, it is prefaced with 'Branches with abundant annular cracks' and I don't see that feature.

Well, off to track the  U. silesiaca lead... Thanks Bruce! :)

The CMA is good. The shape of soralia and if it has isidia or not. UV+ or UV- (that is the 1st char I'd look at if there are big white annular rings). Then I'd use my previous knowledge, which as i mentioned, will be in a little pamplet in a year or so.

They're just really tough and highly variable.