Mushroom Hunting – Part 2 » « Tree Tuesday

Jack’s Walk

I’m lichen you, ©voyager, all rights reserved

These big rocks form a breakwater protecting railway tracks that run alongside the beach for miles. It’s not the prettiest breakwater I’ve ever seen, but that bright orange lichen on the rocks makes it one of the most interesting.  It’s been there as long as my husband can remember and it never seems to change. That colour is fairly true if it looks like Cheetos on your screen and it stays that bright in all seasons and temperatures. I think it looks like paint splotches and it makes a great foil for all the blues that like to blend at the beach.

Mushroom Hunting – Part 2 » « Tree Tuesday

Comments

  1. Nightjar says

    Oh, that is so cool! I’ve never seen lichen of that colour, it’s so vibrant. It does look like splattered orange paint!

    How is Jack doing?

  2. StevoR says

    that bright orange lichen on the rocks makes it one of the most interesting. It’s been there as long as my husband can remember and it never seems to change.

    Could be interesting to take a series of photos of the lichen here over years -- or go back over old photos of the same rocks from the same perspective if you have any and see how unchanging the lichen really is. Perahps if enoughdetial isavailable youcould even work out the rate of growth assuming it is growing?

    As I guess folks know,lichen species are often immensely ancient and extremely slow-growing -- some being among the oldest living things. My brief web searching suggests this is likely Caloplaca marina (which means “beautiful patches” in Greek) the Orange Sea Lichen and a crustose, placodioid lichen :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloplaca_marina

    But I may be mistaken and my lichen and fungi knowledge is pretty limited really. Hope that helps / is of interest here.

    Great photo, thanks.

  3. voyager says

    StevoR,
    That’s an interesting idea. I have photos dating back to the late 80’s and my mother-in-law may have photos older than that. I love the name Caloplaca marina because the patches are indeed very beautiful. Thanks for doing this research and giving me an easy starting point.

  4. Jazzlet says

    I always associate that lichen with seeing sea pinks bobbing atop their mounds of vivid green. It’s a far prettier lichen than the black one you see in broad bands at the level of high tide on rocks tht go right down into the sea.

Leave a Reply