This curious thing?

Picked up this twig covered with lichen in the car park at Castle Fraser, Aberdeenshire last week. Not a thing of beauty, perhaps, but intriguing.

Used it as practice in 'focus stacking', so that the close-up, through software, produces an image that is reasonably sharp throughout.

The colours are much muted, being normally very much more saturated orange/yellow. This muting may have been caused by 'drying out' on the car park and then at home, indoors.

Xanthoria parietina is my (currently) favourite lichen, even though it is very common.