Fried Egg Anyone?

This is a blip of truly tiny lichens. The yellow cups with white rims are just 1-2mm across, the spilled egg yolk measures about 6mm and the grey-green leafy lichen is about 10mm across. They are growing on a Magnolia.

Lichens consist of a fungus and usually, either or both a green alga, or a cyanobacterium, living together in a symbiotic relationship.

The fungus is the main partner, called a mycobiont. The alga and cyanobacterium are photobionts, so provide food for the fungus; but also structure and form.

There are about 1800 lichens in Great Britain & Ireland, which are classified into nine groups, of which the following four are the most common:

Crustose or flat & crust-like (eg map lichen, rhizocarpon geographicum)
Fruticose or bushy (eg the beard-like ones hanging from branches, also pixie cups and devils matchsticks)
Squamulose or small flakes or scales
Foliose or leafy such as the grey green leafy one pictured (which I can’t name as yet) and the yellow one I believe is Xanthoria polycarpa

britishlichens.co.uk is a very useful resource for this information and identification.

My extra is my originally intended blip, but with Intothehills hosting Tiny Tuesday and my love of macros, it was sidelined at the last minute.

It’s simply the flags hanging outside our hotel in Morzine: in order, Europe, France, Rhône-Alpes région (part of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes since 1 Jan 2016), & Haute Savoie département.

If I were to hang flags outside our home in Hertford, they would be Europe, United Kingdom, England, Hertfordshire. But sadly not for long as we are giving up our place in Europe and we may see the break up of the United Kingdom too. Already we are seeing increased levels of racism and thus migrants are leaving our country, no longer feeling welcome. Our flags are symbolic but they mean so much. They mean that whilst our own locality and culture are important, we are part of something bigger and better.