Day 27: Of any Peltigera I might have thought I'd find at Layser Cave, Peltigera rufescens wouldn't have made the list. This beautiful silver-grey pruinose pelt is normally considered a "dry-side" species, but its dense rhizines ("forming a contiguous mass") separate it from any other of its kin. After I got past the "Oooooh, what's that?" stage of discovery, the next words out of my mouth were, "Man, have you got rhizines! You's a woolly bugger! And aren't you gorgeous!" Then, with a look over my shoulder as I remembered that there had been a couple of other hikers on the trail below me, I settled into the serious business of documenting my find. Of course I didn't know it was rufescens at that point, and since I was in National Forest territory (Forest, as opposed to Park), I had only slight reservations about nipping a 1" x 1" specimen for analysis at home in case there were specifics I'd only be able to see under the microscope. I needn't have worried. The rhizines were definitive, and bingo! a new lichen for my Life List.
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