British Lichens

Picture Index

A pictorial index to species gallery photos. Hover over for species name. Click to see the picture.
Natural variation, environmental influences and whether the lichen is wet or dry make it difficult to place a species within the categories shown below with certainty. This is especially true for the colour of the apothecium, the colour of the thallus and whether it is fertile or sterile. These factors need to be taken into account when using this picture index. Please let me know if you find any mistakes.

Crustose lichens

Apothecia with a thalline margin.

Apothecia white, cream or pale coloured (& all fertile Pertusaria species)

Apothecia orange

Apothecia red to brown

Apothecia very dark to black

Apothecia without a thalline margin or difficult to decide (may be immersed in thallus).

Apothecia white, cream or pale coloured

Apothecia orange

Apothecia red to brown

Apothecia very dark to black

Apothecia 'Arthonioid'

Apothecia elongated/star-shaped (lirellae).

Perithecia (tiny flask-shaped ascomata).

Sterile crusts - fruiting bodies absent

With isidia (tiny finger-like projections)

With soredia (tiny powdery areas)

Powder lichens (leprose crusts)

With pycnidia, sporodochia or hyphophores (tiny peg-like, dot-like or scale-like structures)

Not as above

Fruiting body stalked or mushroom-like.

Pin lichens (crusts with small pin-head fruits)

Squamulose lichens (small to tiny flakes)

Leafy lichens (foliose)

Green to greenish-brown

Grey, blue-grey to grey-green

Brown

Yellow to Orange

Jelly lichens

Bushy lichens (fruticose)

Cladonia lichens with stalked apothecia (podetia)

Strap-shaped branches

Beard or hair lichens

Other bushy lichens