Mushrooms, Fungi, Lichens and Molds

These lichens were photographed near the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park.

These lichens were photographed along the Laguna Meadow trail in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. The Green appears to be Usnea cirrosa, one of the beard lichens and the grey to be Heterodermia appalachensis.

Today's photos are of what we sometimes call "small nature," little things we see along the way as we are walking and hiking and stop to photograph, in this case some lichens on the branch of a Ponderosa that my wife noticed. If I am not mistaken there are three different lichens here, including the little patch of orange at the top, but I've not tried to identify any of them. Note: Janet has correctly identified the orange lichen, I believe, as Xanthoria parietina, the Common Orange Lichen and I believe the green lichen with the fruiting bodies to be the Brown-eyed Wolf Lichen, Letharia columbiana. The third, appearing as blue-green scaly patches I can't see well enough in the photos and will have to look for it again.

As seems to be the case with many of them, these lichens are producing their fruiting bodies late in thee winter. The photo was taken near our home on one of semi-daily walks.

The lichens and mosses are about the only things green during the winter here besides the Ponderosas and is seems to be that most of them fruit late in the winter. Most of my photos of lichens are from the winter months, therefore, and ass with these photos include the frost and snow.

These lichens were photographed near Newman Lake in Eastern Washington. I am not very good at identifying these but this may be Antlered Bone.

Photographed near Newman Lake in Eastern Washington, these Lichens and Mosses were growing on a twig. Lichens are difficult to identify but these are probably Ragbag and Bearded Bone and the Moss probably Twisted Ulota.

There are at least three different lichens in this photo. Lichens are difficult to identify, but the wispy Lichen is probably Witch's Hair, the branched Lichen may be Forking Bone and the Lichen growing close to the twig in several places Ragbag. These were photographed on a family hike to Newman Lake and Turtle Rock east of Spokane. Our daughter from Northern Ireland was visiting and wanted to do some hiking. We went with two of our daughters and a number of grandchildren. These photos remind me of a hike we did years ago with a lady who was an expert on lichens. We learned a lot from her but she left a trail of belongings behind that we quickly learned to pick up and take along for her so that they would not be lost. If I remember she left her glasses, her camera, her hiking pole and her coat behind in the woods, along with other items. She confessed that she was on her third or fourth camera, having lost the others, though none of them were expensive cameras.

Photographed along the trail to Lake Serene. The plant underneath the leaf is a Clubmoss of some kind.