Cladonia

A grim grey day, with a forecast patch of clear mid afternoon. 
Very slow to start, methinks I need a new list. .. 

Sure enough mid-afternoon it dried up for a while, the sky very nearly went blue, so Missy and I went out for a wander. Except that sounds a little vague. One of us had a plan.
Out to start recceing for a lichen workshop I'm putting together. It's always difficult to know where to pitch these things, and, even as a fairly knowledgeable amateur there's always the fear you can't usually be 100% with lichens - and what if somebody is disappointed.

So;
Lichens are probably easiest to categorise by their growth form.
A keen amateur should know four: Crustose, Foliose, Scamulose and Fructose. There are actually eight: Filamentose, Byssoid, Leprose and Gelatinose.
I usually bang on about how there are 15000 types of  lichen in the uk with more being identified every month, so it's best to simply try and learn families. For a specific identification it needs to either be fairly unique or you'll need some additional tools. Most of the common names are actually catch-all. 

But for this workshop I want to delve a little deeper. 
So let's begin by taking a look at the fabulous Cladonia family. 
They start life as Squamulose. Eh? Are you sure? Yes, it's a low lobed thallus where the lobes are part of the mass. Yet it's their distinctive Podentia (the tall 'stems' that are actually a secondary thallus and form part of the reproductive process) that make them so much fun, and start our id process- they also make them Fruticose.
Well at least we can start with Pixie Cups - except we can't. There are seven UK Cladonia species that make cups, I need a x60 magnifying loupe to tell the difference betwixt them all....I'm sure you're starting to build a picture. 
But it can be done. 
Today I found:
Cladonia ramulosa - brown / peach apothecia, very variable, found on moorland, rotting wood and drystone walls. Key identifier brown fruits and grey podentia.
Cladonia polydactyla - tall, and again variable, often terminating bright red apothecia that can be tiny, multiple or massive. Key identifier weakly branched and very coarsley covered, Squamulose in appearance, podentia.
Cladonia diversa- Main pic. Cup shaped terminals to podentia in displaying pyncydia (the tiny red apothecia) but also develop into (& shown in this shot) the apothecial state which can be much more dramatically red and noticeable.