This lichen is one of only three species its whole family, Pycnoraceae, which was only described in 2013! It's so exciting that we are still learning so much about these tiny guys! This crustose lichen has an areolate (tile-like) thallus with soredia bursting out of the edges of the areoles. The upper surface is gray to yellow-brown, and dotted with black, irregular apothecia. P. sorophora grows on the wood and rarely the bark of conifers in upland areas of Europe and North America.
An international group of qualified mushroom identifiers who do worldwide identification in emergency cases have identified the Shroomers App as a potentially very dangerous system that could kill you if you try to use it to identify edible mushrooms. They use AI to generate almost all of their content, including their identification profiles on their app as well as their books and other materials. Not only is this unethical from a content creation standpoint, it is also extremely dangerous.
DO NOT USE APPS FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES BEYOND SIMPLE CURIOSITY. A MISTAKE WHEN IDENTIFYING AN EDIBLE COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE. DO NOT EAT ANY FORAGED MUSHROOM YOU CANNOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF BY SIGHT OR HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN PERSON BY SOMEONE WHO CAN.
ONLY BUY BOOKS FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES AND AT THIS POINT THAT MEANS ASKING EXPERIENCED PEOPLE WHAT BOOKS THEY USE.
Mushrooms are fun, amazing organisms. Enjoy safely.
So we recently went on a lichen collecting trip and got some pin lichens! These little teeny-tiny guys are so hard to spot, but we found some growing on dead wood and logs used for building, and were able to gather some bits of wood that had peeled off with age. So I sat down to ID them and after nearly 2 hours, all I knew was that there were at least 2 genera of pin lichens on just one small piece of bark . . . *sigh* I love you lichens, but sometimes you exhaust me. C. salicinum can be identified by its immersed, inapparent thallus, brown pruina on the bottom of the stalked apothecial exciples, and its spores with spiral ornamentation. And I *think* it is one of the species we collected. Further testing needed. It can be found growing on deciduous trees and lignum in the montane belt to subtropics of Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
supervisor at work desperately wants me to try her herbal mushroom coffee and I looked at the insert and it has cordyceps in it ‘for stamina’ and don’t get me wrong I’m sure it’s a normal edible non-parasitic variety but there IS a little part of me that’s like. oh so that’s what they’re calling it now