Kinghorn, 20th December 2015

Having had the "Lichens of Rocky Shores" foldout for a while I decided to locate some rocky shore, which isn't so easy in west central Fife. There are some rocks and some typical rocky shore lichens to be had on very shallow rocky coast at Dalgety Bay and North Queensferry, but not a lot. So Kinghorn was the closest place I could think of with proper rocks.

I came away with no photos of the most obvious lichen - Xanthoria parietina,but it's so ubiquitous I felt like I didn't need to. I had in mind a trio of lichens that I was looking for, the first being Collemopsidium sublitorale, which makes its home on barnacles. After a while I located it without too much trouble.

Collemopsidium sublitorale

another I was looking for - or at least one of a pair - was Lichina confidis, a small fruticose species. This one lives in the splash zone, while its congener prefers life lower down with the Verrucaria maura.

Lichina confidis

The third I was looking for was Ramalina siliquosa, which I didn't find on this brief exploration. I did find this rather nice Anaptychia runcinata though. It was relatively abundant.

Anaptychia runcinata