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Images of British Lichens


Peltigera rufescens (Weiss) Humb.


Upper surface of fresh thallus brown or grey-brown, ash-grey when dry, densely but minutely felted-tomentose, lacking bullate wrinkles (compare P. canina), lower surface white-tomentose, with branched, confluently-based rhizines that are white near the thallus margins but conspicuously dark-brown further under the lobes, veins also becoming dark brown under the lobe-bases, thallus margins upturned and crisped-undulate, thallus lacking isidia or soredia; apothecia vertical, on erect lobes. Widespread and locally common on dunes and on well-drained basic and ultrabasic soils.

Refs: Vitikainen (1994) 77-80 (photo); Smith et al. (2009), 672; Purvis et al. (1992), 443; Dobson (2005), 319; Dobson (2011), 320 (photo); Jahns (1983), 240-241 (photo); Nordic Lichen Flora (2007) 3: 127, 199 (photo); van Herk & Aptroot (2004), 286-7 (photo); Wirth (1995), 2: 680, 690 (photo); Wirth et al. (2004), 162 (photo); Moberg & Holmåson (1984), 177 (photo); Hansen & Anderson (1995), 52 (photo); Brodo et al. (2001), 520 (photo); Hinds & Hinds (2007), 372-3 (photo); Walewski (2007), 35 (photo); McCune & Geiser (2009), 240 & 257 (photos); Øvstedal & Lewis Smith (2001), 263 (brief), plate 60 (photo).

The rhizine characters are useful when this species forms mixed colonies with P. canina in dune turf. P. didactyla, in its mature, apothecial, non-sorediate state, can also resemble P. rufescens.

Peltigera rufescens, dry
Peltigera rufescens, damp
Peltigera rufescens, damp
In dry and damp state (same colony), in sandy, Breckland turf, Thetford, Norfolk, April 2010. Lowest photograph showing underside with dark veins and rhizines.
 
Peltigera rufescens, showing mature apothecia
Material with mature apothecia, in sandy, calcareous, Breckland turf, Mildenhall, Suffolk, April 2010.
 
Peltigera rufescens
Peltigera rufescens (white rhizines are visible here, but further under the thallus the rhizines were dark brown)
Peltigera rufescens, with apothecia and also showing the dark brown, branched rhizines
In dune turf, Aberlady Bay, East Lothian, March 2007
 
Peltigera rufescens, showing the dark brown veins on the underside of the thallus
In damp state (pubescence less obvious), in turf on upland roadside, Cabrach, Aberdeenshire, August 2009. Note dark veins on under-surface.
 
Peltigera rufescens
Peltigera rufescens
Peltigera rufescens, showing rhizines
In dune heath, Shewalton Pits, Ayrshire, May 2009.


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© A.J. Silverside
Uploaded May 2008, last updated January 2012 (first hosted at www-biol.paisley.ac.uk, May 2007)