magpie

Growing on birch bark, possibly in association with the bright-yellow powdery lichen, that might be Chrysothix? In the past, I have found this lichen growing on spruce with Chrysothix as well.

Photo taken with a cheap digital microscope so picture quality isn't the best but its okay. These little guys measured about 1mm tall. I would definitely suggest getting a handheld scope, I do use a 10x hand lens in the field but the digital scope is really handy and doesn't cause eye strain.

Found on a spruce twig in mainly spruce-doug fir forest. I was lucky enough to find plenty of windfall on the ground so grabbed a couple pieces for my collection. The bright yellow pigmentation is from vulpinic acid which makes this one of the few poisonous lichens in my area.

I started out as a hobby mycologist but I live in Canada and mushrooms can be in short supply during the winter. I took up amateur lichenology to fill the void but I quickly became consumed by them, there was so much I didn't know and the uncharted-territory aspect of it took hold of me. Now I photograph way more lichens than mushrooms and I've started to do a bit of public speaking for my mycology group on lichens and their ecology. I am just an amateur though so I'm not an expert by any means. Pic: Stereocaulon sp. The link is below.

https://mander.xyz/c/Lichen

I have tried to find one all over lemmy and have had no luck aside from the odd mycology community. While lichenology does fit within the borders of mycology I think it's a subject that warrants and is deserving of its own community. I have left reddit now and the sub I miss most is r/lichens, its a small but dedicated community and I think we could have that here. I'd love to see more people learn about lichens. Pic: Letharia vulpina or Wolf Lichen

I will be making sure they are the right objectives in every way before I purchase anything. I'd just like to know where I can start looking. I added a 60x a while back, it was really cheap but works surprisingly well considering I payed like 20$ CAD for it. Parfocality is just about the same as my stock objectives, just a slight turn of the fine focus. That said, I'd like to spend more and get a whole new set of higher quality objectives.

I'd love to hear feedback if someone here has switched out objectives on this particular model. I do not need to hear that my microscope sucks haha, I'm a hobbyist so its not a big concern of mine at this time.

I normally grow things like pioppino, lions mane and oysters, this is my first time growing a polypore. It took a long time, many months haha. I think this was inoculated back in november and I just got around to fruiting a few weeks ago. Lots of spore samples to put under the microscope, let me tell you.

Went out to take a look at some massive colonies of Xanthoparmelia growing on a rock face. 5% potassium hydroxide test results in a nice deep yellow, almost green stain on the upper cortex. The medula is also K+, turning a deep blood red/orange. I blotted the soaked lichen on some paper and got this beautiful golden-rod ink. This ink was produced from less than a cm^2^ of lichen and a couple drops of KOH. I would love to experiment more given the abundance of this lichen and the small amount of material needed to produce the ink. This photo was taken 24hrs after staining the paper but I'd need to further test the colour fastness.

Edit: I am conscious of ethical harvesting practices for lichens, I normally only harvest for identification purposes and even then I try to only collect samples detached from the substrate.

Red tree brain fungus, love to see this guy. Typically only find it on fallen branches that are very soggy but not super rotted.

Beautiful lichen I don't see a lot, its probably very common in my area but just not in my normal spots. Apothecia are striking, hope I find more.

I have a site I run on amateur mycology/lichenology. citizenmycology.ca

Definitely in my top 3 favourite genera of lichenized fungi. So photogenic too, I always get down on my knees for pixie cups (reindeer lichen too, if I'm being honest).

Found growing on concrete but I also often find it on metal. Anyone have any idea why it was changed back to Xanthoria elegans in Macrolichens of the PNW?