A mound of Cladonia lichen shared space with the Tiny Bluet (Houstonia pusilla), mosses, and black jelly lichens. The Cladonia lichens can easily be told apart from the scale lichen. The scale lichen, like the ones in the above photo, lie flatter on the ground. Oh the other hand, the Cladonia lichens stand up more and one side will show the white hyphen on the underside not covered with more solid “skin”. Perhaps in a future post, I will show a closer view of each to give you a better understanding of it.
The Ladies-Tresses (Spiranthes) leaves were coming up. The leaves will not persist in the fall when they bloom.
A single leaf of Engelmann’s Adder’s-tongue (Ophioglossum engelmannii) was in this area.
Purple-fringed Liverwort (Reboulia hemisphaerica)! The sporophytes (the umbrella shaped thingies) were blooming. There are ten species of liverworts that have been identified at Fossil Hill.
A weird insect case? Any ideas?
A lichen on rock. The color when dry I suspected might be grayer. Guess I will just have to go back and find out. 😉
We saw small creatures too while on knees. The little nymph grasshopper was five or six millimeters.
An Earthstar (Geastrum fungus) had lost it puff ball.
A regular puffball puffed with encouragement!
As you can see I was still doing the knee stuff. LOL. Part 3 tomorrow!
That scale lichen sure is pretty and love the earth star. Fossil Hill may be the prettiest place i know.