UVF Lichens on Twigs

[Adrian]

I picked up a few fallen twigs at random from a local woodland, to try out with UV Fluorescence. Really interesting! There is quite a lot of research being carried out into "lichen substances", and whether they might be a useful constituent of sunscreen lotions.

Technical details:

UVF: Nikon D800 with 105mm micro-Nikkor. Convoy S2+ UV LED torch. Approx 20 seconds @ f/16.

[Cadmium]

Adrian, Very nice!

Your UVIVF shot looks very true to life.

[Andrea B.]

That is a wonderful array of lichen fluor.

UV is mentioned in my huge Lichen book** as being one of the ways to ID some of the gazillion varieties of Lichens.

I'm quite fascinated by Lichens but have never made much progress in identifying them beyond the basic growth patterns.

 

**I wasn't paying too much attention when I ordered what I thought was a nice field guide to Lichens. Imagine my surprise when an 800+ page monster tome having a 8-pound shipping weight showed up on my doorstep. :D It was such an impressive thing I decided to keep it. But I did go looking for a much smaller portable regional field guide.

[Cadmium]

Andrea, Which book is it?

[Adrian]

Andrea

In the UK there is a superb series of "fold out" guides produced by the Field Studies Council. They cover many natural history topics including bats, flowers, fungi, and lichens, by habitat (e.g. Lichens on Twigs). They are key based with colour photos and are very cheap (approx. 4GBP). They are designed for university students as well as naturalists. https://www.field-studies-council.org/publications/fold-out-charts.aspx

Not sure if there is an equivalent in the US? Many of the lichen species would occur in the US I think.

[Andrea B.]

Cadmium, the monster lichen book is Lichens of North America by Brodo, et. al. 2001.

It is a really nice book. And now Brodo has written a separate key for it.

Identification of lichens is very technical so I have not pursued it. (No time!)

 

(BTW, I don't think I paid $125 for the book when I bought it. Although I don't remember for sure.)

 

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Adrian, we do have many fold-out guides available in the US. But there is no single source like your Field Studies Council. Their fold-outs are really nice! Thank you for the link. I do hope to see more of the British Isles someday and these guides would be very enjoyable to use.

 

Here one would find laminated fold-out guides in the nature section of bookstores. Or in the bookstores associated with national or state parks. Or available sometimes from groups like the Audubon Societies or other enthusiast groups.