Welcome to UK Lichens.
The main reason I started this site was to provide high quality photos of lichens that are found in Great Britain. Hopefully, the quality will be good enough so that you can zoom in and really see what it looks like close up. Why did I call it UKLichens when it includes everything in the British Isles? Simply because 'www.lichens.co.uk' was already taken as a webname (although it has never been used).
I have just registered 'www.britishlichens.co.uk' and might transfer over to that address instead since it refers to the geographic British Isles rather than just the political United Kingdom. Some people might say that 'British' refers to 'people who come from the island of Great Britain'. But in the end you have to be practical and I am not going to call this site 'www.britishisleslichens.co.uk'!
Identifying lichens can be a bit tricky, especially when you are just starting out! I often spend hours looking at the samples I have collected trying to work out what they are.
Keying things out in the official lichen flora The Lichen Flora of Great Britain and Ireland (new edition out soon) can be hard work. It is all too easy to get a critical step wrong, or maybe you don't have the right equipment or chemicals to answer the question. The language used to describe species can be difficult to interpret. Many of the species' descriptions are comparative and say 'as the previous species but more robust' or 'more granular soredia' or 'usually pruinose' etc. the trouble is that you might not have seen the other species yet. For example, I've been fooled by decrepid, tree-growing Parmelia saxatilis several times - but that's OK - you can't know lichens without making mistakes (to err is human - but with lichen identification it is simply expected!). Then one day I found another 'tree-growing-Parmelia saxatilis' but it was pruinose (had a powdery bloom on it) so once again I collected a bit and it turned out to be Parmelia ernstiae - so all that checking of things that didn't look quite right finally paid off by finding a lichen that I had never seen before - and, of course, the photos are now in the Species Gallery.
Basically, we need more photos to help us identify lichens - the more the better. This is the primary purpose of this site - providing photos of lichens to compliment those identification guides that we might already use.
This is not intended to be a super-duper-lichen-taxonomy-mega-site but an easier way in for people who want to get some help to expand their interest and skills.
But, while You can identify many lichens simply by pictures, you certainly can't do this with all of them. Most of them look the same as another species and require chemical tests and a microscope to separate to species level or even to genus. A microscope with an eyepiece graticule is very useful to measure spores etc. Some lichens, especially the powdery crusts (e.g. Lepraria) even need Thin Layer Chromatography techniques to determine the species - which is a tall order for most amateurs. So photos are not necessarily going to give you the right identification but they can be really helpful for leading you in the right direction or showing you that you are barking up the wrong tree.
I want to build up a good collection of photos on this site but there is no way that I can hope to take pictures of all the lichen species in the British Isles by myself so I need your help.
I hope you will send me your best digital photos - either to complement what we already have, or new species. I will credit you in the photo data and they remain your copyright of course (you're the boss of your photos - you can ask for a photo of yours to be removed if you want - no problem). Hopefully, through time, the website will develop a community feel as more people contribute photos and maybe as the site develops in other ways. Note this straightforward copyright info. I assume that if you send in a picture you have agreed to that. Send me as many as you want but (very important) make sure you know what they are and it is useful to have substrate and location details. You can send photos by CD if prefered - email me for my address.
We're NOT looking for perfect specimens here - just lichens as you find them - immature, infertile, crusty, at the edge of their range, shady or just plain wonky - a bit like the people who study them really! In fact it is those less-than-perfect lichens that are hardest to identify so photos of those will be very helpful. See my photos of Ochrolechia tartarea (apothecia emerging). This is a common upland lichen but I didn't know what it was until I found it fully fertile so I have provided both examples in case someone else has the same trouble.
I want this website to have really good photos BUT an 'adequate' photo is better than 'no photo' and we can always replace it with a better one later. Some of my own and other people's photos have already been replaced in order to keep the quality high. I might be a bit choosy sometimes about which photos get posted but then I pay for this website so why not?
I do prefer photos taken outside. Studio photos just don't usually work so well unless it is a crustose species photographed under good light conditions. A few of my shots are studio ones but they tend to look boring or un-natural.
Here is an email address to send your photos to;
mail@uklichens.co.uk
Please also send your constructive comments/criticism/advice/ideas/problems with the site. It is always nice to know that someone has visited your website.
I have some ideas of how I want to develop this site but that will take time and some swotting-up. It's not easy designing your own website - you have to learn a new language - unless you use an expensive software package. I prefer to do it myself so I can learn about it from first principles. This way you don't get tied in a knot when you want to make modifications and you stay in control. I got a lot of help from a really useful book called 'Creating Web Sites - the missing manual' (website link here (loads of other techy titles too)).
Note the links/community page - here are some other websites well worth a look. And a discussion group to consider joining. If you are going on holiday somewhere why not join an email group and ask people where to go and what to look out for? If you want any help/advice of any kind - email me! If I don't know - I will know someone who does.
Better still, join the British Lichen Society - definitely NOT a bunch of unapproachable experts but a mixture of all abilities and all really nice people who are very happy to get out and share an interest in lichens (and a pint and a laugh). The BLS runs regular field trips and there is absolutely nothing better than learning the subject by going round with a group of experts.
Mike Sutcliffe, Gateshead, England. Date started 21 June 2006