Cladonia gracilis (images of British lichens)

Podetia tall, brownish or greenish grey to dark brown, sparingly branched, finely pointed or terminating in small, well-formed, abruptly widened cups with a crown-like ring of shortly stalked brown pycnidia around the margin, podetial surface lacking soredia, smooth but beset with minute, green areoles, squamules absent, or sparsely distributed on the lower parts of the podetia; basal squamules ephemeral; apothecia brown, developed on the margins of the podetial cups. Widespread and locally common in lichen heaths, often where slightly shaded.

C. furcata can be very similar but lacks cups; C. crispata is also very similar but the cups are perforate (i.e. the podetial tip is expanded into an cup-shaped ring, open at the centre, often with growth of the podetium continuing from one side of the ring).

Refs: Smith et al. (2009), 329; Purvis et al. (1992), 209; Dobson (2005), 140 (photo); Dobson (2011), 147 (photo); Britton (2008) 28 (photo); Jahns (1983), 218-219 (photo); Allen (2007), 22 (photo); van Herk & Aptroot (2004), 144-145 (photo); Wirth (1995), 1: 308, 329 (photo); Wirth et al. (2004), 83 (photo); Moberg & Holmåson (1984), 143 (photo); Holien & Tønsberg (2008), 92 (photo); Hansen & Andersen (1995), 29 (photo); Thomson (1967) 95, plate 9 (photo); Brodo et al. (2001), 256-7 (photo); Øvstedal & Lewis Smith (2001), 167, plate 33 (photo); Lichen Atlas of the British Isles 2: 392 (1996).

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Images of British Lichens