Unfortunately it’s been a bit since my last post, but fortunately some of that time was spent staring intently at rocks, trees and dirt on the west slope of Colorado. Since I had not spent much time at all in that part of the state after my infatuation with lichens began, I did not know what to expect. What I certainly did not expect was for Rhizoplaca novomexicana to be by far the most conspicuous lichen in my travels.

Called New Mexico Rim-Lichen by some authors, there are specimen records for most of the mountain west from the Mexico border just reaching Canada. In Colorado, it can be found just about anywhere including the plains and the high tundra, rocks required. Along the Front Range it is rather local on sunny rocks and more common above timberline. But judging from four days spent near the Utah border it can be found anywhere out west, I found some just about anywhere I looked, especially on sandstone. As a taxonomic note this species was long in the huge Lecanora genus, that is before modern taxonomists carved it up into a dozen or so new genera. Within the genus Rhizoplaca it stands out by being truly crustose. It’s close relative Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca is attached at single point, like a very short tree trunk, or umbilicate in lichen terms.

In identifying this species, narrow down your search criteria first by a high level description. It’s crustose, it has lobate margins, and it has plenty of apothecia. This lichen can be sterile but usually a fertile specimen is nearby. Next up note the rather unique yellow-green color of the overall thallus. Also a nice clue, is that this species is often missing older parts of the center of the thallus as in the lichen to the right.

The key I first used to identify this species, Brodo’s Lichens of North America, makes a big point of the shape of the margins. They are distinctly raised vs flat and instead of overlapping form tiny winding canyons. This is also a important characteristic of the most common lobate crust along the front range, Protoparmeliopsis garovaglii. To close out the ID check out the color of the apothecia. They should nearly black to a kind of bluish grey; there always seems to be a hint of cobalt color if you look carefully enough. Often, but not always, the apothecia are dusted in a yellow pruina like the individual below.

I am excited to share some of the other tales from exploring the dusty canyons of western Colorado. So hopefully a quick introduction to a new fungus whetted your appetite.

Spring is brief in Colorado, making it very important to play hooky this time of year! This post records an adventure from back in May 2009, a wetter spring than Colorado has had in recent years. That made it a perfect time to visit Lair o’ the Bear Park with a friend to see jelly lichens.  

I hadn’t visited for a while, so had to check every cliff to find the right one, way out at the west end of the creekside trail that was once the main road from Morrison to Evergreen, shortly before it enters adjacent Corwina Park.

Eventually we reached the proper cliff, where we could see not only the sought-after jelly lichens, but the wonderful Sticta, and verdant masses of spikemoss, Selaginella. The jelly lichens were soft and slimy from recent rains and lingering rivulets in the cracks and crevices of the cliff. In this photo, a large Umbilicaria (lichen, not a jelly one) is under the ring, with dark Selaginella to its right, and lighter-colored masses of true mosses surrounding.

Properly called gelatinous lichens, these lichens are so named because they lack the firm texture of more typical foliose lichens and have a characteristic translucence when wet. (They remind me of the “tree ears” we sometimes encounter in Chinese restaurant dishes, but those are actual fungi.) Gelatinous lichens are unstratified or only partially so, lacking the distinct algal layer, and sometimes the firm lower and/or upper cortex found in the “typical” lichen (if there is such a thing). The primary phycobiont species is a cyanobacterium, generally Nostoc.

They look so different when they’re dry! This one is, I believe, a species of Leptogium, with a white tomentum visible on the lower surface. Perhaps L. saturninum, but confirmation will have to await another trip. With a hand lens. For those who prefer common names, LoNA* calls this one bearded jellyskin.** (Ugh!)

By the way, you can sometimes find free-living forms of terrestrial Nostoc in Colorado (more commonly here in NY). We’ve seen them on Lyons Sandstone near Red Rocks Park.

* LoNA is Lichens of North America, the coffee table book of lichens, by Brodo, Sharnoff, and Sharnoff. Highly recommended! You can see Sharnoff’s species photos from the book at Sharnoff Lichen pages.

** Jellyskin is the name used here for the entire genus of Leptogium, as opposed to the name “jelly lichen” given only, in that book, to species of Collema, another common jelly lichen. This is the only book I know that assigns common names to lichens; few lichens have true common names.