On a twig of an old Oak in Oxhay Wood. Physcia tenella (grey foliose, with long cilia, Parmelia melanelia subs. glabratula (green foliose when wet, brown when dry), and Lecanora chlarotera – looking just like little Ascos – which is what they are!)
We’ve spotted some fine lichens in Rough Wood over the winter, including bushy Usnea, or Beard Lichens. These are hard to spot now that the vegetation below the old trees is almost impenetrable, so the lichens on woodland pasture trees and the Millstone Grit in more open areas of the Longshaw Estate is a better option at present.
On 18 June we had a look at Oxhay Wood, on higher land to the east of Rough Wood. We weren’t able to get into the woodland proper, which is currently fenced off, so whilst everyone else went to search for fungi proper amongst the rough grassland and scattered trees by the track, I had a look at lichens on an old Oak. The track links the old homesteads of Barn in the Woods (or Barn i’ the Woods) and Greenstead Farm, grade 11 listed buildings which seem to have kept their old-world character – they are pictured in a 1935 local newspaper report about the desperate appeal by the National Trust to save this idyllic spot from the designs of a Hathersage property developer. The apppeal, based in Sheffield, succeeded within the year and instead of 900 houses and big roads we still have the splendid woodland pasture, peserved “forever” in its wild state. The big Oak I looked at was in a well-lit place and so had plenty of lichens. I recorded the following – though my list would have likely been at least twice or three times as long had Steve Price, our local lichen recorder, done the job.
Parmelia saxatilis, Cladonia coniocraea, Evernia prunastri (once used for making face-powder and on wigs), Parmelia sulcata, Lepraria incana, Parmelia subreducta, Ramalina farinacea, Hypogymnia tubulosa, Melanelia subsp. glabratula, Physcia tenella, Lecanora chlarotera, Xanthoria parietina, Xanthoria polycarpa.
Just one specimen was difficult to name – a rather greyish shade of buff on the apothecium, and quite pruinose-looking, but otherwise similar to the browner Lecanora chlarotera which I had already named. It looked as though it could possibly be L. albella or L. carpinea – the first being a southern species with no definite Derbyshire records, and the second much less common then L. chlarotera. The cortex was C- (no reaction with simple bleach), there were no yellow granules on the apothecium surface, and “massive” crystals were present in the ascocarp margin – so I took this to be a pale variety of L. chlarotera, which is described as being a variable species. Measuring the squashed-out simple hyaline spores feels a bit odd as mycologists always like to look at deposited maturespores – I might try to get a “spore print” – though this technique isn’t mentioned in Dobson – maybe because lichens like Ents do things very slowly.
The Lecanora species usually have little ascos which look very familiar to mycologists:
On a twig of a veteran Oak by the track in Oxhay Wood.
Close up of the ascocarps which looked a bit grey for Lecanora chlarotera, but the LED lighting does make the image more blue-green.
Fungi at Longshaw 