Earlier in the week I made my way down to Wolf Ridge's Superior Site and walked on top of the frozen Dragon Creek. I only fell through the ice a few times, luckily it's pretty shallow. I spent most of my time exploring on the river, stopping to sit and read Wild Pedagogies here and there, and even joined Shelby on GoogleMeet for a grad nat interview. Of course, I also spent some time lichenizing. Like the shoreline there, Dragon Creek is a pretty unique, interesting habitat. Temperature wise it is pretty cool, at the bottom of a ravine shaded by mostly mature white cedars, with some birches and white spruces mixed in. The proximity to Lake Superior further cools it, and with the creek also adds a lot of humidity to the area. There's also a lot exposed rock. Overall its a great habitat for mosses and lichens, and hosts quite a diverse community, distinct from the surrounding forest and shoreline.
I saw a bunch of Abrothallus microspermus growing on the Common greenshield lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata). There were a bunch of dead spruces that had fallen over and were laying across or right next to the creek, it was always in these branches that I found the A. microspermus. There was Common greenshield lichen in plenty of other places that might have had the fungi on them as well, but I didn't see it anywhere else. I also saw Abrothallus peyritschii on some of the powdered sunshine lichen (Vulpicida pinastri).
Abrothallus peyritschii on powdered sunshine lichen
Common greenshield lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata) with Abrothallus microspermus
Zoomed in on the Abrothallus microspermus
Those species I was able to confidently identify, these next ones not so much. On some Cladonia sp. growing on a sunny boulder by the creek I saw what I'm tentatively saying is Epicladonia stenospora. At first glance I thought it was pycnidia on the thallus of the lichen, but it was on both the top and bottom of the thallus and seemed a lot larger than most pycnidia I've seen on Cladonia. Another one that I tentatively identified is Epilichen scabrosus on what looks to be brown beret lichen (baeomyces rufus). It looks like there is 1-2 other species growing on the brown beret lichen in this area, maybe Arthrorhaphis grisea and/or Sclerococcum athalinum, or something else. I've come across quite a few lichenicolous fungi on brown beret lichen, hopefully I can collect some sample to actually figure out what they all are. I saw one other example of what seems to be a lichenicolous fungi, but I have no idea what the host lichen is.
Epicladonia stenospora? on Cladonia sp.
Epilichen scabrosus? on brown beret lichen
Small black fungi on brown beret lichen
Large black fungi on brown beret lichen
(can also see the small ones, maybe the same thing, maybe something else entirely?)
Unknown fungus on unknown lichen
There were also some other interesting lichen that I saw as well.
Candy lichen (Icmadophila ericetorum)
Common chocolate chip lichen (Solorina saccata)
Camouflage lichen (Melanohalea sp.)
Moss shingle lichen
Calicioid lichen on white cedar snag
Calicioid lichen on white spruce bark
Calicioid lichen on white spruce bark
Camouflage lichen (Melanohalea sp.)
Rock dimple lichen (Gyalecta jenensis)
On that day I saw one last lichenicolous fungi, Tremella cladoniae growing on a Cladonia sp. on the talus of Marshal Mountain on the Raven Lake side.
Tremella cladoniae on Cladonia sp.
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