Hi Sim! So, I think it's more halotolerant rather than halophilic. NaCl is pretty horrible for a lot of things, so just by being more resilient X.p. gets a competitive advantage near the sea. I reckon the mechanisms that help it deal with nitrate stress and salt stress are probably related though.

Some interesting implications for pollution tolerance if summers were to get drier.

Always a great read Adam

I'm sure you can find it on the fells without having to get any ropes out! The Cumbria crew might know a good spot for it @onloughrigg.bsky.social @chriscant.bsky.social @northernhills.bsky.social

Yeah, I did wonder parasite at one point, but Schaereria checks out fungi.myspecies.info/taxonomy/ter...

This is described as squamulose in LGBI, which I think is pushing it a bit for my interpretation of the term. What do you think? I guess lumpy crust grades into squamulose at some point...

Nothing going on in the ascus tip, some nicely arranged globose hyaline spores, unbranched paraphyses, and an epithecium that turns vivid emerald green in K leads nicely to Schaereria cinereorufa, a circumpolar arctic-alpine of mineral rich rocks #lichenGBI

There are 110 other posts in the vicinity and I took a closer look at about 40 of them. The original one I noticed still happened to be the best in my opinion, in terms of "terrain" and diversity.

Hard to be sure from the photo but this looks to me like Lichenomphalia umbelifera, a lichenised basidiomycete. The thallus is little algae-filled granules but the fruiting body looks a lot like this

Part of: Exploring the Hidden Fungal Diversity: Biodiversity, Taxonomy, and Phylogeny of Saprobic Fungi

doi.org/10.3897/myco...

Another mysterious black crust from the same habitat, Schaereria fuscocinerea. Working out what this was in the field was a bit of a light bulb moment as it helped to put the other black crusts around (like O.m. and Rhizocarpon c.f. reductum) into context. #lichenGBI