Cladonia.

Mrs TD was very ill last night, the sort where she didn't know which way to turn, I won't go into any more details; Jnr had a similar problem the day before he came home, but he has the resilience of youth on his side. Now, I don't feel too good either. I popped out this afternoon for a quick Blip and found an acquaintance slumped on the ground at the bus stop, surrounded by worried family and waiting for an ambulance; it seems he has a similar problem. As the doctor always says, "There's a lot of it about."

The picture is of the naughty bits of a colony of Cladonia, a lichen and evidence of the improved air quality around here. The most remarkable thing about this specimen is that it hasn't been chewed by slugs; in other parts of the world, reindeer would be the culprits - here we only have enough to feed the molluscs. My understanding of such organisms says that it is difficult to identify an individual species as each variety of the fugal portion may be host to any of many different species of algae and life becomes very complicated.
I have no objection to any expert correcting the above information as my sources aren’t too reliable.


I have just posted “Portobello Beach” from 10th November.