News-- and Observation Suggestions
Feb 2020
We have started a monthly bryophyte group in Menifee at the San Jacinto Collage biology lab. This is free and open to all beginner to advanced. Lab has microscopes and tools available for bryophyte identification. Every first friday of every month.
March 6th, Next meeting will have an 'Introduction to Bryophytes presentation' which will include the most common mosses of Southern California. We will then get into keying these mosses.
Everyone in the group also discussed working on lichens as well. so we are opening this group up to "bryophytes and lichens" but beginning with the study of bryophytes.
We will attempt education speakers and help to id available. If your Interested in more information or would like to sign up contact me at Chris Wagner, mossgeek@yahoo.com or here on INaturalist (mossgeek).
Field suggestions;
-keep a small spray bottle to hydrate lichens. I always take pics of dry and hydrated when i can.
-Note the habitat. Some lichens are limited to rock/boulders while others are limited to tree trunks and branches. some lichens do not care about substrate. Habitat and substrate also helps to identify to species.
-If there are several species, focus pictures on one species at a time. This way when identifying it we can identify one species within the photos.
A great word of advice i got from my bryologist and lichenologist mentors is to put an identification to it even if you dont know it is correct. This way you are paying more attention to the characteristics and when you do get the correction and correct, you will remember these characteristics. Putting a close name is better then no name, or at least to genus and or family.
Comments
Thank you for posting these suggestions!
Thanks for this - it is helpful to know that 'guessing' isn't considered reprehensible!
And when traveling to the Bay Area, don't forget the sister project - Macrolichens of the San Francisco Bay Area - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/macrolichens-of-the-san-francisco-bay/members
Oh very nice! Thank you. Yes in the guessing identification. Also because people like me can go through a genus and the are some species such as everyone calling all yellow crust rhizocarpon, we can go through those easily and correct them all. I key out species that way under the microscope also by going over all of one genus. You really remender the same or different characteristics that way.
Please read this article on "Professional identificaiton verses online photo ID"
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/mossgeek
omgosh! i did it. i finally jammed through every lichen photo from so cali and added them here!! It took me months! The only ones i didnt get on here are those that did allow to add to projects. boo. otherwise this is great!
Good for you!! I'll try to remember to add mine whenever I post one. Thank you for looking at them!
Thx. Now that I got them all in there going to be easy just to add the few that come up
interesting note-- i found this in the San Bernardino NF collection notes from Kerry Knudson...
NOTES. – Letharia lupina is common throughout San Bernardino National Forest. The species is distinguished in our region by its occurrence in montane habitats at middle to higher elevations and by abundant isidia and soredia. It lacks apothecia in almost all specimens examined from San Bernardino National Forest. Letharia vulpina (L.) Hue is rare and reduced in form in southern California at elevations below 700 meters. It cannot be distinguished morphologically from L. lupina. For more information see Altermann et al. (2016).
Further study...
L. lupina and L. vulpina are very similar, and where they co-occur, they are impossible to reliably separate without genetic testing. Where their range does not overlap, the following morphological differences are recognized:
L. lupina
lemon yellow
long and sparsely-branched
parse isidia
L. vulpina
greenish yellow
abundantly branched
copious isidia
-L. lupina furthermore can be characteristically two-toned, due to the presence of bright yellow cortical patches contrasting with more greenish isidia and greenish tissues surrounding the isidia, although this is apparently not always expressed in every individual thallus.
-L. lupina tends to be higher elevation (190 m and up, warranting the common name “mountain wolf”), while L. vulpina is found in lower elevations (< 1600 m even in southern regions) with warm summers and high occurrence of fog and/or nighttime dew.
-L. lupina is far more common and more broadly distributed than L. vulpina in North America, the latter being restricted to regions west of the Rockies, and virtually absent from the Sierra Nevada.
i think that there are probibly many of the identified L. vulpina here on this project that may actually be L alpina! It appears that L. alpina is actually more ciommon here than L. vulpina.
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