Cladonia rangiferina (images of British lichens)

One of the 'reindeer lichens' (subgenus Cladina), podetia generally erect, in tufted mats, white to pale grey below, upper parts pale, purplish-grey, becoming brown towards the branch-tips, branches strongly recurved in one direction, ultimate branches generally in fours (tetrachotomous), tips often furcate, podetium surface with a cottony texture, as if covered with cobweb; pycnidia small, brown, containing colourless jelly, located on the branch tips, apothecia small, brown, rare. Generally in exposed, usually upland heathland, often with C. arbuscula subsp. squarrosa and other members of subgenus Cladina, in the north and west.

Refs: Smith et al. (2009), 319; Purvis et al. (1992), 194; Ahti (1961), 86-91 (description includes C. stygia), plate 30 (photo); Dobson (2005), 143 (photo); Dobson (2011), 150 (photo); Britton (2008) 26 (photos); Jahns (1983), 212-213 (photo); Wirth (1995), 1: 295 (photo), 296 (photo); Wirth et al. (2004), 70 (photo); Moberg & Holmåson (1984), 149 (photo, as Cladina rangiferina); Holien & Tønsberg (2008), 81 (photo, left part of mixed colony); Hansen & Andersen (1995), 24 (photo); Hinds & Hinds (2007), 202 (photo); Thomson (1967) 151 (description includes C. stygia), plate 26 (photos); Walewski (2007), 84 (photo); McCune & Geiser (2009), 29 (photo); Lichen Atlas of the British Isles 2: 411 (1996).

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Images of British Lichens