245 Floral Pixie

This lichen (Cladonia bellidiflora) is found in a wide variety of habitats over much of the temperate regions in both the northern and southern hemisphere.  Here at Leaning Oaks it was photographed on dead wood, growing in the company of other mosses and lichens.  A number of species of Cladonia have the bright red fruiting structures or apothecia. A British website decribes this species rather elegantly:


"Non-fruiting podetia often tall, generally unbranched, gradually tapered, terminating in points or small cups with red pycnidia, podetial surface clothed in densely layered, blue-green or yellow-green, palmately incised squamules that peel upwards and which diminish evenly in size from base to tip of the podetium, soredia absent; apothecia bright red, on shorter and more irregularly tapered and squamulose podetia.......for reasons I cannot  quite explain reminds me of Japanse Pagodas."

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