Trumpet Lichen (Cladonia fimbriata)
It’s like looking into an alien world, but it our world, and the world of lichen. This trumpet lichen grows on the bough of an old willow by my local river, and it is a bit like looking in on an alien landscape. This is a tiny grey-green cup-shaped lichen. Closer inspection reveals a rough, granulated appearance. This lichen is composed of a fungus and an algae which form a symbiotic relationship, where both life forms benefit each other. The trumpet-shaped podetia (cup-like structure) holds the apothecium (reproductive structure) and helps aid in spreading the lichen’s spores when raindrops splash down inside them. Podetia 6 to 30mm tall, 2 to 6mm diameter cups.
Found on soil and rotting wood. Common and widespread.
Looking closer at the image below the lichen can just about be seen growing amongst the thick mat of moss on this large willow branch.
Photograph of Trumpet Lichen (Cladonia fimbriata) taken February 2012, by local river, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2012. Camera used Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38.
Nature Journeys 
very cool macro work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Chris 🙂
LikeLike
Very nice closeup of a single trumpet in the second photo. I like your choice of shots giving the long view and the two closeups, one more so than the other.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much David 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great macro work. I had a presentation on lichens, and you have captured what we could see in the microscope. Amazing. Mind my asking about gear?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Victor, I appreciate your comment 🙂 Believe it or not this was taken with a bridge camera at the time, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38 on macro setting. Now I use Sigma 105mm macro lens.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I continue to be amazed what can be done with cameras these days. Its easy to assume the DSLR is the best, but I think more often comfort and famiarity with our tools is most important.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I have to agree with you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love the Sigma 105. I’ve got one for my Nikon D600, though these days I’ve been going with a lighter kit—a Panasonic GX8 with a variety of lenses including a Olympus 60mm macro. Another fine lens and about 1/4 the size of the 105!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It sound you got some great kit there, John. I do enjoy the macro world.
LikeLike
Like something you would see in a Sci-Fi movie!! Very nice!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much 🙂
LikeLike
Interesting glimpse of this curious world. Nice photos!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Belinda:)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazing photos Pete, you certainly do some great macro’s.!
I was getting into Bryophyte’s, however I found that too many of the authorities were even more controversial than those concerned with entomology so I gave it a miss. However at a personal level I still find them very interesting and have a good few photos too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Mick. I do enjoy photographing mosses and liverworts, but they can be quite a challenge to identify.
LikeLike
Such amazing details when you get that close – an alien world for sure! It is the same when you get some really close ups of insects, some of them really looks like small warriors coming straight out of a movie! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Inger 🙂 I do enjoy photography on the macro scale, as I see things I would not normally see.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great shots Pete. I did a whole series of what I called “Micro Landscapes” a bunch of years ago. As a kid, I loved to lie on the forest floor with my face in close to the mosses and lichens. I’d imagine being a tiny being wandering in a great forest!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, John. The micro world is indeed an amazing world, and I can understand why you lay on the forest floor letting your imagination go. It is certainly a good way of getting up close to a side of nature which most of us don’t always notice and pass by everyday.
LikeLike
Thanks for liking my fancy grasshopper. It was a stroke of luck that I spotted it as I was leaning down to take a flower photo. I also enjoy nature and macro photography, especially fungi and plants, so I am going to take some time to look at all your wonderful images. These lichen photos are great!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are welcome, Marilyn, and thank you for your kind words and for following 🙂 I will look forward to enjoying more of you your blog!
LikeLike
We have a little patch of these on the side of the drive which I’ve photographed a few times, but your pictures are superb, so sharp! I love the single little cup. We have so much lichen here, they say it’s because the air is so clean.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much, Jude 🙂 They are quite difficult to shoot being so small and trying to get the focus right, but worth the patience and the effort. I really enjoy these micro-worlds 🙂
LikeLike
Macro, and that ‘tiny world’ just fascinates me, it really is an enormous world that so many people never explore.
LikeLiked by 1 person