Cladonia

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Ken Ramos
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Cladonia

Post by Ken Ramos »

I will not state what species of lichen this is, other than it probably being one of Cladonia. It resembles the species of which there are at least several hundred. :)

Image

Image

Image

Meiji EMZ-13TR w/Sony DSC-W5

The lichen samples were split, some of them, by a razor blade and then held sideways under the scope using a pair of tweezers to get the landscape type images. Sort of reminds me of one of those old prehistoric monster movie sets. In the first two images one can see, what I think is, the fruiting bodies of the lichen rising up from the thallus. :)

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Good grief, is this all one type of "organism" ?!

Please, tell me that the spiky thing is actually a moss, growing up interspersed with the lichen! :?:

--Rik

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

If I am not mistaking your question, the longer spikey things are the fruiting bodies of the lichen itself, rising upwards from the thallus or lichen body. There are also mosses growing among the lichen but they are quite smaller. The crusty surface of the spikes are due to the soredia or reproductive bodies containing the spores of the fungi and the photobiont. :D

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ken, I think that what you're talking about are the tall spires, but what I was asking about were the much shorter (but equally broad) "leafy-looking" things, for example located at 1/2 way across and about 1/3 way up on the last picture, whose leaves appear to end in a point that is sharper than 1 pixel at this resolution. Since you tell me that there are mosses in here, I'll happily believe that I'm looking at one.

Thanks,
--Rik

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Oh...okay sorry :lol: Yep those are mosses. :D

beetleman
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Post by beetleman »

They do look like strange new worlds. Did you ever find out what those Unusual Life Forms were in the the post from 9/27?
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Doug asked:
Did you ever find out what those Unusual Life Forms were in the the post from 9/27?
Not yet Doug. I am still waiting to hear from Julie at the Herbarium at Harvard. I emailed them to her to pass around in hopes someone will recognize or know what it is. Of course the people at Harvard probably have a lot better things to do than look at some critter that someone with a microscope has found but you never know. :-k :D

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