botanyshitposts

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Omphalora arizonica

Potato-chip lichen

People ask me all the time if you can eat lichens. For most lichens you *can* eat them, but they just aren't very delicious or particularly nutritious. I think the better question is *should* you eat lichens, and the answer is generally NO. So knowing that, what smart guy decided to start calling the critically endangered O. arizonica potato-chip lichen? Basically BEGGING for it to be eaten? I don't know but please, if you come across this dude and think "mmmm, cronchy . . . " just leave him be, OK? This umbilicate foliose lichen grows on cliff and vertical rock faces at high elevations in SW USA. It can grow up to 20 cm in diameter, but usually can be found in round, folded bunched 5-10 cm across. The upper surface is yellow and ridged, with round papillae surrounding punctiform (dot-like) pseudocyphellae (areas of the cortex lacking algal cells so as to appear paler than the rest of the surface). The lower surface is dark blue-green to black, and covered in more papillate pseudocyphellae and tubercles. It produces lots of apothecia, which have a red-brown disk and prominent margin. O. arizonica has a patchy, unpredictable distribution, and was once likely more widespread according to historical records, but whatever factors have caused its decline are still not understood. Like with so many lichens, more research is needed to fully elucidate its specific niche, and measures should be taken to protect these lil rock snacks until we know more.

images: source | source

info: source | source

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love seeing lichens on awnings. they just keep winning

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FedEx says they were confused and could not deliver my packidge (spelt like that one packidge tumblr post I think about every time I get anything in the mail, you see) but I’m scheduled to disappear into the wilderness for over a week again tomorrow. people will claim to deliver microscopes and assume the recipient won’t be disappearing into the wilderness for over a week. transphobia lichenphobia fungus and algaephobias etc

fellows for pride month im getting a compound microscope to complete my lichen identification setup. cant hold it in anymore cant keep it back

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what are your favorite lichens in each color of the rainbow? Are there any purple lichens?

I am happy you asked:

Red: Lasallia rubignosa

Orange: Teloschistes capensis

Yellow: Candelariella rosulans

Green: Sticta canariensis

Blue: Lobarina scorbiculata

Purple: Peltigera hymenina

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fellows for pride month im getting a compound microscope to complete my lichen identification setup. cant hold it in anymore cant keep it back

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Feels like a fence you'd enjoy

Obsessed with the giant space of less happy creatures in the coverage corresponding with the tree shadow. The usnea hive mind fucks with this fence except this zone in particular actually

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Sticta sylvatica thriving in a damp, shady corner of the paddock. #FencepostOfTheWeek

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creature called Puncture Vine launches attack on my bicycle tire. you won’t believe what happens next

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what they don’t teach you in lichen school is that wolf lichens (Letharia vulpina, neon green, 3 dimensional, academically famous for having yeast in them in them sometimes and also for being toxic to mammals) can be pretty abundant in the Pacific Northwest and in fact can grow so large on the bare branches of trees that they get to the size of baseballs and become unstable and get thrown off their branches to the ground. like Icarus

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Sign i saw recently had a bunch of paint worn away with lichen in its place, however i unfortunately did not have my phone on me 😔😔

in an alternate universe where science funding is stable and abundant regardless of monetary gain we have already gotten to the complex root of which lichens enjoy signs but only the letters or only the sign and what about the letters or sign they prefer and this haunts me

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i need to complain to someone and you seem like you would understand. i'm trying to identify plants from a genus that essentially has One botanist working on its taxonomy, so the keys in this one guy's various publications use all the same completely unexplained terminology and i'm dying. one of the distinguishing features is whether the bracts(which are leaves) are "leaf-like" or "bracteose"(bract-like). please my dude, they are all both

the perks of being so far on an invisible cutting edge include being able to go to one (1) person who is like, the Expert Person for definitive advice or guidance and they can give you as close to a real answer as is possible in academia on earth at this moment. unfortunately this also means you are at the whims of what they consider definitive advice or guidance as is possible at this moment

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my college botany professor studies cacti and he once told me about how there's a 'heat press' thing you use when preparing herbarium samples of succulent plants because it helps them get flat and dehydrated enough to fit them on the dam page. he said hes put cacti in the press and left for days and come back to find samples starting new shoots out the sides of the press before and i just think about that sometimes. just another day at the heat factory from the cactus pov i suppose

its crazy that cacti can be as rotund as they are. saw 4 over the past few days in the middle of nowhere wilderness with what i could describe as softball type shit going on. an optimal form of creature is an orb in the desert with like 3 huge flowers and you cannot even touch it btw (in case you were unaware of the dangers)

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idk if the truth should be hard to understand because in order to hit the public it must first pass through a gauntlet of communicators which brings its own moral problems but i definitely respect and relate to people who work to give a narrow hyperspecialised beam of the truth in dense, granular terms because theyve been living and breathing data points about one specific topic for like 40 years. so you ask the truth and theyre like actually its messy but i can give you a trend. honorable and necessary for society even if its like, air fryer data or something

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its crazy that cacti can be as rotund as they are. saw 4 over the past few days in the middle of nowhere wilderness with what i could describe as softball type shit going on. an optimal form of creature is an orb in the desert with like 3 huge flowers and you cannot even touch it btw (in case you were unaware of the dangers)

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funny thing about university libraries is that sometimes they let you in even if you’re not a student. sometimes they let you look at and check out books as just some guy with very intense hyperspecific interests. and that’s so real of them

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identifying a grass tuft that’s been chewed down into a little formless stub by creatures is difficult yes. but what’s more shocking is that it’s possible if you believe

sharp learning curve at the new plant job as I learn to identify grasses by their vibes

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sharp learning curve at the new plant job as I learn to identify grasses by their vibes