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Lichens on a dead twig in my yard in Austin. We have had a lot of rain and the lichen fruiting bodies have sprouted.
Creative ideas in jewelry making, soft soldering, crafts and upcycled, innovative, repurposed art and home décor, and the upcycled garden.
The orange lichen is a Teloschistes, probably T. exilis. The dangly stuff is a Ramalina species, possibly R. peruviana, and the black dots on the twig are a Buellia or Amandanea species (B. stillingiana or A. punctata). There is also a small Parmotrema species, probably P. hypotropum--the blue-green leafy lichen in the middle of the orange Teloschistes. There is at least one other lichen species here I can't identify.
I'm intrigued by the range of ecological relationships that exist. We like to make neat distinctions between mutualist and parasite that apply to all individuals in a given relationship, but there's no intrinsic reason why they'd all be the same. While identifying these British Soldier Lichens I ran across this: Some scientists think Cladonia cristatella is a parasite of Trebouxia erici, using up its food but not giving much back to the algae. Since Trebouxia erici can live on its own, or with another lichen, it doesn't really need Cladoina cristatella. Other scientists believe the two organisms have a mutualistic relationship, since they both seem to do better with each other, rather than on their own.
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10cms diameter
photographed in Yellowstone National Park
Creative ideas in jewelry making, soft soldering, crafts and upcycled, innovative, repurposed art and home décor, and the upcycled garden.
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Jewelry Artist/ Metalsmith
I've been a mushroom hunter for my whole life. I can remember my grandma taking me to the woods when I was a little boy, encountering all kinds of wild animals, plants and mushrooms. But I kinda found something special in mushrooms though, so I started photographing those miniature forest landscapes.
Photographer Steve Axford lives in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales, Australia, where he has spent a considerable amount of time exploring the
