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Alan Silverside's Lichen Pages
Physcia tenella (Scop.) DC.
A very small, foliose lichen, the lobes with long marginal cilia and usually with terminal soralia on the turned up undersides of the mature lobe-tips, lobe surfaces often dotted with black pycnidia; apothecia shortly-stalked with blue-black or thinly pruinose discs. Widespread and often abundant on twigs, bark, walls and rocks, often in company with P. adscendens, Phaeophyscia orbicularis and Xanthoria species as indicators of nitrogen enrichment. Here in Paisley, it has become in recent years the dominant lichen on many of the trees in the town centre. (Note that Hypogymnia physodes has similar, sorediate, up-turned lobe-tips and can look similar, but it is generally larger and lacks marginal cilia.)
Refs: Smith et al. (2009), 702; Purvis et al. (1992), 468; Dobson (2005), 341 (photo); Nordic Lichen Flora (2002) 2: 38, 99 (photo); van Herk & Aptroot (2004), 302-303 (photo); Wirth (1995), 2: 726, 727 (photo); Hansen & Anderson (1995), 55 (photo); Moberg & Holmåson (1984), 202 (photo); Holien & Tønsberg (2008), 79 (photo); Brodo et al. (2001), 559 (photo); Hinds & Hinds (2007), 399 (photo); Lichen Atlas of the British Isles 3: 1120, 1121 (1998).
Photographs: Paisley, Renfrewshire, June 2008; Longniddry, East Lothian, 2007
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Uploaded June 2008, last modified June 2010
