Hoary locks

In my previous blip about the lost memorial I mentioned the old oak tree beneath which John Wesley preached in 1777.

The oak is indeed an ancient specimen. Still upstanding but more covered with epiphytic ferns than I have ever seen and hung all over with clumps of hairy grey lichen dangling from its branches and twigs. Tufts of the stuff littered the ground beneath.  I took a few home to identify. 

I notice that some of the lichen strands had thickened sections strung together like sausages (or in some cases, salami), something I'd not seen before. (Extra)
Well, that made it easy to identify. It is in fact it's  String-of-sausage lichen,  rare and confined to very specific locations, of which Wesley's oak tree is not one. (I'll be recording it.)

We know the oak was standing in 1777. Two hundred and fifty years on,  its grey beards seem entirely fitting.