we just found a strand of Usnea longissima that is 6.9 meters long. This seems exceptionally long to me. Is it ? What is the longest U. longissima anyone here has seen ? thanks !
Hi Carla,
Bill Denison had a strand wrapped around a 1 ft wide piece of cardboard, to measure it. 25 ft!! = 7.62 m, so yours isn't the longest, but close! I think it could be even longer, but it gets broken by twigs and wind etc. Good find!
daphne stone wrote: Hi Carla, Bill Denison had a strand wrapped around a 1 ft wide piece of cardboard, to measure it. 25 ft!! = 7.62 m, so yours isn't the longest, but close! I think it could be even longer, but it gets broken by twigs and wind etc. Good find!
Dangit ! i was hoping i had a champion ! Just kidding, it's good to know how long it can get. i love it :-). Thanks for your response !
30-40 feet?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NorthwestLichenologists/posts/5085320791491647
Maybe we need to start a "Boone and Crockett" style record book (with trophies recorded photographically rather than stuffed and mounted).
What's the biggest Lobaria pulmonaria? Umbilicaria americana? Evernia prunastri? (which even has antlers, but I don't think anyone wants to count points)
This raises the question of how you would measure the biggest for each species.
John Villella and I have an Ophioparma ventosa at Lava Beds National Monument that is 19 1/2 X 14 1/2 inches. Also Umbilicaria nodulospora that was close to 4 inches, unfortunately I didn’t measure it precisely.
OK, trophy hunters, given the interest in this, I removed the defunct "Featured Fungus" gallery (PNW Fungi Project no longer exists) and created a Trophy Hunters gallery. Instructions on what and how to submit are provided. Go for it! I seeded it with a giant Letharia apothecium that I found some years ago.
A book like Van Pelt's wonderful "Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast" came to mind, but so far not many contributions to Trophy Hunters.
Sort of related or maybe not - stretched lichens -
https://northwest-lichenologists.wildapricot.org/page-1816539/149805772#photo
https://northwest-lichenologists.wildapricot.org/page-1816539/149805769#photo
https://northwest-lichenologists.wildapricot.org/page-1816539/149805766#photo
https://northwest-lichenologists.wildapricot.org/page-1816539/149805763#photo
Brings to mind "boudinage" - "a geological term for structures formed by extension, where a rigid tabular body such as hornfels, is stretched and deformed amidst less competent surroundings. The competent bed begins to break up, forming sausage-shaped boudins. Wikipedia
Yes, those stretched crustose patterns are great. I've always thought one could measure lichen growth rates if you knew how fast the circumference was expanding. If the stretched thallus is an ellipse, the major axis is tree circumference growth + lichen diameter growth, while the short axis is just lichen diameter growth. Could get tree circumference growth from the rings. Then a bit of algebra to get the lichen growth rate. Somebody must have done this, but I don't recall seeing it.
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