BRANCHES: solid, generally flattened or at least angular, pale yellowish- to grayish-green, often cracked, often black-spotted
CORTEX: thick, rigid, from anticlinal or palisade layer to simple sheath grading into thick underlying cortex
MEDULLA: loose to dense, hyphal strands often sticking together, occ. forming strands
APOTHECIA: discs; spores 1-septate, hyaline, straight or bent
PYCNIDIA: black, immersed, conidia rod-shaped
CHEMISTRY: cortex KC+ gold (usnic acid)
Immediate coast from south Alaska to Baja California, southwestern Europe and Canary Islands, northern Chile, and south Africa.
Common Name: Sea Fog Lichens
Family: Ramalinaceae
Shrubby lichens, typically growing on rocks within stone’s throw of the ocean. They occur only in the dry fog-belt of mediterranean climates, such as California and Baja California. In these habitats, they are the only large shrubby macrolichens that grow on the wind-swept, highly-exposed bluffs overlooking the sea.
One species, Niebla cephalota grows on trees, and extends both much farther inland and farther north all the way into southern Alaska(!). This is also the only sorediate species.
(This extracted from Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region, Vol. II, Nash et al. 2004, genus treatment by P. A. Bowler and J. E. Marsh.)
1. on bark or wood
2. powdery soredia . . . N. cephalota
2. not sorediate . . . . . . N. ceruchis
1. on rock, rarely soil
3. branches flattened or angular in cross-section
4. chondroid strands present in medulla (check cross-section with hand lens)
5. not isidiate, very common . . . . . . . . . . N. homalea
5. conspicuously coralloid isidiate . . . . . . N. isidiascens
4. medulla with uniform texture
6. branches strongly flattened and smooth . . . . N. laevigata
6. branches irregularly thickened and rough . . . N. polymorpha
3. branches rounded in cross-section
7. branches long (to 8 cm) and spreading to subpendulose . . . N. procera
7. branches short (less than 3 cm) and densely caespitose
8. branches stout and rarely branched
9. branches inflated and spongy . . . . . . N. robusta
9. branches stubby and solid . . . . . . . . . N. combeoides
8. branches very thin and well-branched, forming Cladina-like cushions
10. smooth, forming dense Cladina-like cushions . . . . N. ceruchoides
10. isidiate-papillate, coarser, Morro Bay . . . . . . . . . N. tuberculata
Additional species in Baja Caifornia:
N. josecuervoi like N. homalea but with different chemistry N. cedrosensis like N. procera but not black-splotched and dullerMainly maritime rock outcrops, occ. soil or trees.
Ramalina can be similar, especially for tree-dwelling forms. It, however, has pale pycnidia, pseudocyphellae, prosoplectenchymatous cortex, and bacilliform conidia.
Vermilicinia is a segregate genus not yet fully accepted. See the discussion in Ramalinaceae.
