Species of the Month - February 2017

Black-eyed Susan

Bunodophoron melanocarpum

This is one of the many specialist lichens that thrive here in the west of Scotland but are rare elsewhere in Britain.  Even here in its heartland it is not at all common.  A good place to see it is Glen Nant National Nature Reserve where it is quite plentiful.  It has many other sites in our area, typically in humid ancient woodland, where it will grow on tree trunks or on mossy rocks.
 

This is how it appears from above.  Flattened shoots which branch in one plane, often clothed in dense clusters of much smaller coral-like branches.
 

This is the view from below, showing how it gets the name Black-eyed Susan.  The black spore masses are on the underside of protective hoods at the ends of the main branches.  Jan's photo is taken looking up the trunk of an oak tree at Glen Nant.
 

A closer view of the top side and underside.  This one is growing on birch in a wood at Port Appin, photographed by Jan on LNHG's January 2014 field trip.

The only species it could be confused with is the common Sphaerophorus globosus, but that has its branches round in cross-section, not flattened, and they are often brown.  Also the fertile branch-ends containing the black spore-masses are ball-shaped in that species.
 

Black-eyed Susan growing on rock in Glen Crean woods
 

On birch at Sutherland's Grove on our Jan 2013 field trip, photo by Jan.  Frank Dobson's Lichens book (2005 edition) says it is "very rarely fertile in Britain", and sure enough most web photos from places outside west Scotland show it without any fruitbodies.  It is commonly fertile in our area however.  Other good sites about this lichen are: Alan Silverside, Irish Lichens, Plantlife
 

Please send in your Black-eyed Susan sightings using the form below, or email sightings@lnhg.org.uk with the details if you prefer.  If you are not sure of the identity of your lichen, please send a photo to sightings@lnhg.org.uk, or put one on the LNHG Facebook page.