#pertusaria

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria texana

Texas wart lichen

She ain't perty, but she's got an awful sweet spirit. P. texana is a crustose lichen that grows on smooth-barked trees in Mexico and the southern United States, as well as the Galapagos islands, Australia, the Seychelles, and Papua New Guinea. It has a wrinkled and bumpy, pale yellow-green thallus that glows orange-red under UV light due to its production of thiophaninic acid. It produces apothecia deeply embedded in conical thalline warts, which are often topped by "yellow nipples" at the openings (their words, not mine). Ah, that explains why this post was under content label review for so long. I have stared at lichens for so long that they all just look like lichens to me, not these human anatomy features y'all see. At this point I am more likely to see a person with their shirt off and be like "what interesting lichens you have there!" than the other way around. TMI?

images: source | source

info: source | source | source

[blogbirdfeather]

Pertusaria sp

Lisboa/Portugal (6/02/2025)

[Nikon D7100; AF 105mm Micro-Nikkor F2,8]

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria subambigens

Frosted wart lichen

The worst name for a cereal lichen ever.

images: source

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria californica

OMG you guys, there is now this AI plant care app (Greg App), for anyone curious) that is getting top-billing in Google searches when looking up info for plant care, but has apparently has now moved into lichen care? I have never seen more evidence for the uselessness of certain AI products than using generic advice to describe how to care for Pertusaria californica, a rare lichen only found in very particular habitats along the Pacific North American coastline.

The phrase "Thanks, I hate it," has never applied so thoroughly to something in my life. It uses very technically the correct information to come to the completely wrong conclusions, and I fear that this is the future of information distribution as we know it (OK I am being dramatic but I am a little day-drunk and this has me really wound up). What I can actually tell you about this lichen from a reputable source is that P. californica is a crustose lichen that grows on siliceous rocks in costal and montane habitats along the west coast on North America. It has an areolate (tile-like), verrucose (wart-like) thallus that is whitish-gray in coloration. It produces 1 to 10 small, black disked apothecia in its verrucae (the wart-like protuberances in the thallus) which produce large (relatively) spores. And you can't cultivate it at home. Why? Because lichens are slow-growing habitat specialists that require hyper-specific conditions to thrive and like to thwart our every effort to cultivate them. I think out of spite.

images: source | source

info: source | and the Greg App but I refuse to cite them because they have made me mad and it is clearly AI generated anyway so screw them

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria macounii

Macoun's wart lichen

Finding a Pertusaria lichen in the wild? Wonderful, very exciting, happy day. Looking at close-up pictures of Pertusaria lichens and being forced to think about them in the context of human skin conditions? Awful, gross, bad day, please stop doing that. This crustose lichen grows on (mostly) deciduous trees in temperate regions of North America east of the Rockies. It has shiny, greenish-gray, cracked thallus with nodular, wart-like (ew gross hate it) projections containing deeply embedded apothecia, only visible as small dark pores or depressions. It produces very large spores which have a characteristically ornamented inner spore wall. Why pig spores coming out of a tiny opening? I am not sure, but it appears to be an ancestral trait within the family maintaining high fertility, with wider openings evolving secondarily and often tertiarily evolving into asexuality.

images: source | source | source

info: source | source

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria paratuberculifera 

Spotted wart lichen

Such a long name for such a little guy! This crustose lichen has a thick, pale green-gray, white-spotted thallus. The thallus is covered in wart-like protuberances that hold 1-5 deeply embedded apothecia. P. paratuberculifera mostly grows on the bark of hard wood trees, but can occasionally be found on conifers or rocks. It is native to eastern North American forests.

images: source | source | source

info: source

[lichenaday]

Pertusaria oculata

Eyed wart lichen

"The Moss Has Eyes 2: The Lichening." In theatres this December. No but seriously, these aren't eyes. Like you probably know that, but just to be sure, these are the lichen apothecia, aka fruiting bodies. They produce fungal spores that will hopefully grow into new little lichens some day. So definitely not eyes, in spite of what the name P. oculata might suggest. This crustose lichen has a thin, cracked, gray or white thallus that grows on the surface of moss, soil, and detritus. It produces lots of large, cylindrical isidia which often obscure most of the basal thallus. And it of course occasionally produces those distinctive, lecanorine apothecia with a brown to black disc, and smooth or isidiate thalline margin. P. oculata can be found in arctic-alpine regions of the northern hemisphere, typically in areas with silicious soil above the tree line.

images: source | source | source | source

[blogbirdfeather]

Pertusaria sp

Sintra/Portugal (18/03/2023)

[Nikon D7100; ∑ 18/300mm DC Macro OS HSM with Flash Nissin DI 700A; 1/250s; F16; 400 ISO]