Identification: lichen found on a sand dune in France

Discussion in 'Fungi, Lichens and Slime Molds' started by jac, Oct 2, 2010.

  1. jac

    jac Member

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    Hi,
    First time I post on that forum. I apologize for my poor english (posting from France).
    The attached photo was taken a few weeks ago on a dune on the atlantic coast of France.
    Looks like a lichen, growing together with Ephedra distachya (I do not know the english name). From what I gathered on the web, could be cladonia furcata or something similar.
    Can somebody confirm ?
    Thanks
    Jac

    more pictures of the lichen at http://fogeo.free.fr/flore/autres_dunaire.html
     

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  2. togata57

    togata57 Generous Contributor 10 Years

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    Perhaps Clavulina cinerea, but I think that you are right.
    Fear not: I am certain that our members will have a positive ID for you tout de suite.
    Bienvenue, jac!
     
  3. jac

    jac Member

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    thank you tagata57 for your answer and suggestions,
    I had not considered the possibility that my "lichen" could be a mushroom, I shall dig the idea.
    Regarding Clavulina, I have never seen large areas of lands covered with it, rather isolated bunches, but maybe somebody knows more about it
    Jac
     
  4. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Maybe a Cladonia species. Not sure though, as I can only see the thumbnail, the full size photo is not loading (Daniel, this has been a fairly frequent problem in recent weeks, any idea why?).
     
  5. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Aha! Photo loaded on the 5th attempt at clicking on it.

    Looks good for Cladonia portentosa, though there are several similar species so can't be certain if that is the right one (I am using a UK book, and don't know what species occur in western France).
     
  6. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Off-topic for this thread, but the reason is that the web server is apparently getting to the end of its life (it isn't able to always successfully serve large image files). I had hoped to move the site over to the new hosting services we are going to use before my vacations, but there was far too much prep work and too little time. Right now, I've scheduled Oct 18 for moving the site over and things should return to normal after that.
     
  7. jac

    jac Member

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  8. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Not all Cladonia spp., no; the others that look fairly similar in my UK book are C. uncialis (next best fit), C. arbuscula, and (somewhat less similar) C. rangiferina (which only occurs in northern Britain northward anyway). It doesn't mention the species C. furcata that you mentioned above, maybe that one doesn't occur in Britain (or if it does, is rare). The book also has another 10 Cladonia spp. which don't look at all similar.

    PS Daniel - thanks!
     
  9. jac

    jac Member

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    ok, thank you, I'll have a look at this large Cladonia family !
     
  10. Harri Harmaja

    Harri Harmaja Active Member 10 Years

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  11. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Looks plausibly like Cladonia uncialis, which has a huge North American distribution. There are some Cladonias with narrow distributions, however.
     
  12. Frog

    Frog Generous Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    It looks like Cladina to me, rather than Cladonia.

    cheers,
    frog
     
  13. Silver surfer

    Silver surfer Generous Contributor 10 Years

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  14. Frog

    Frog Generous Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Wierd and interesting! Thank you for sharing that; I'll have to bend some lichenologists ears on this topic.
    Well, therefore in the old sense of the genera, Cladina and Cladonia represent two distinct morphologies, and the photo in this thread looks like a Cladina in that sense.
    :-)
    frog
     

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