Monday 24 August 2009

Algae (and Lichens) for Beginners - Malham Walk

This was written in 2009.         Click for Other Posts about Lichens on this blog

Note added on 8 Sept 2012: Today On 8 Sept 2012 I am leading a walk along the same track - meeting at 10.30am in Malham Yorkshire Dales National Park Car Park. - - I have added some notes in red today to this blog post which was otherwise written in 2009. 

Today's walk is run for Plantlife members and for everyone else local or visitors who would like to come. Now back to my preparations in 2009..

We haven't got Rainforest in Yorkshire - so lets look at Nature at a small scale - algae, bluegreen bacteria and lichens.



On Wednesday 26 August 2009 I am helping Allan Pentecost in "An Algae and Lichens Walk" - Let's be honest - I have organised the walk and put the posters up .. and now hope to learn as much as I can from him!! - Thanks Allan. This Monday evening after it had stopped raining I went to Malhamdale to take some photos. The views just before I dropped down to Malham village were great! You are looking towards Gordale above.

Focusing on the wall top we see Verrucaria nigrescens and on top of the cap stone is a yellower lichen, seen closeup below.




On the other side of the road I looked across a stone along the road - You can see Malham Cove in the distance. On the stone there is a white lichen Aspicilia calcarea  and an orange one Caloplaca flavescens. Here below is the same rock and lichens but closer up.

Once in the village, I park in the National Park Car Park. the sun is shining on the trunks of the two small ash trees. Near the base of the trunk is Xanthoria parietina and next to it a species of Physcia. Let's go for Physcia tenella

The tape has mm on one side and 1/8 ths of an inch on the other. The pictures below have ended up sideways.


This is of Lecanora chlarotera.


This lichen has black fruiting bodies.



On a Mountain Ash trunk near by is some Usnea subfloridana  (Sadly by 2011 it had disappeared)





this tree has Ramalina farinosa

and Parmelia sulcata

The border of the door for both Ladies and Gents toilets is sandstone. This lichen grows on it.It is Lecanora campestris




Outside the chapel the wall tops are also sandstone and have large patches of a whitish lichen



and also one with black fruiting bodies




On the fence post over the road is this green. Is it alga or is it lichen?.. I think it will turn out to be the filamentous alga Klebsormidium crenulatum


I set off. at the footbridge on the back wall of the Blacksmith's is some Caloplaca flavescens.


by now the batteries in the camera and the spare batteries are flat. . I have only gone 100 yards. Time to go home!.


Click for Other Posts about Lichens on this blog

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