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Two lichens share this twig. The leafy yellow lichen is common orange lichen, scattered with small orange cups where its fungus produces spores. Its colour comes from a pigment that acts as a natural sunscreen: in bright sun it turns deep orange, while in shade, as here, it stays a softer greenish-yellow.
The pale grey-green lichen is hooded rosette lichen. Its narrow lobes are fringed with fine hairs, and their tips swell into tiny hoods filled with white powder. Each grain of powder is a minute package of fungal threads wrapped around algal cells, ready to blow away and start a new lichen elsewhere.
Both thrive where there is extra nitrogen in the air, from farming, traffic or bird droppings. While many lichens disappeared from industrial Britain because of sulphur dioxide from burning coal, these nitrogen-loving species have become more common as that pollution has fallen and nitrogen has increased, making them among the most familiar lichens on twigs, fences and walls today.
Two lichens share this twig. The leafy yellow lichen is common orange lichen, scattered with small orange cups where its fungus produces spores. Its colour comes from a pigment that acts as a natural sunscreen: in bright sun it turns deep orange, while in shade, as here, it stays a softer greenish-yellow.
The pale grey-green lichen is hooded rosette lichen. Its narrow lobes are fringed with fine hairs, and their tips swell into tiny hoods filled with white powder. Each grain of powder is a minute package of fungal threads wrapped around algal cells, ready to blow away and start a new lichen elsewhere.
Both thrive where there is extra nitrogen in the air, from farming, traffic or bird droppings. While many lichens disappeared from industrial Britain because of sulphur dioxide from burning coal, these nitrogen-loving species have become more common as that pollution has fallen and nitrogen has increased, making them among the most familiar lichens on twigs, fences and walls today.