Last night as the clouds were moving in I got a quick photo of the Moon and Jupiter with my phone.
,As the wind shifted and clouds moved in, the temperature started to drop. This morning it was 43F when I got up. So, as is our tradition when it gets cold, I lit our first fire of the week.
A few days ago I casually mentioned Cladonia. I should have been more thorough in my comments, as at least one person asked what they were. Cladonia is a genus of lichen. They are rather small, rarely over 40mm tall. As with all lichens they are a symbiont of an alga and a fungus. Their names reflect the taxonomic status of the fungal component.
I’ve spent many years studying and trying to learn more about lichens. There is still a lot of work on my part before I feel competent with identifying many. I’ve seen 100s of the 1000s of species that occur in North America. Now back to the Cladonia.
Members of the genus Cladonia are a diverse little (literally and figuratively) group of lichens. Over the past thirty years I have managed to see, and identify 27 species in Michigan (of the 450 lichen species in total that I have identified in North America) . They are probably among my favorite genus within the lichens. Identifying this genus, as well as most required careful examination, and sometimes chemical tests (which I never do). My go to reference is Lichens of North America.
This “heavy” book (1-2kg) travels with us where ever we go by car. In my opinion it is too heavy (and valuable) for packing in a suitcase. Regardless, it is one of the nicest books that I own. Now on to Cladonia.
Often I will find small groups of Cladonia on sandy soils or old logs. I am frequently alerted to their presence by the red fruiting bodies of the British soldiers, although some are brown. But I always stop to look because typically where there is one species there will be others.
With the howling wind at Whitefish Point (gale waning for Lake Superior) we might head over to the Lower Tahquamenon Falls, before heading back to Ann Arbor in a day.
Well, the idea of heading anywhere ended when the power went out. Fortunately it was just after I finished typing and saving what I had written. Ah, the dark side of having a place in the north.
Michael's Place 