Day 85: If Platismatia herrei has taught me a lesson, it is that a single experience may lead us into erroneous suppositions, and consequently, may affect how we respond in the future. My prior encounters with Tattered Rag Lichen (cousin to Platismatia glauca, "Ragbag") were with specimens which had been delivered to the forest floor by windstorms. The erroneous "ergo" was the assumption that they were a species of the upper canopy, and if I wanted to see the lichen in situ, I'd have to work on my tree-climbing skills. However, while I was searching for a better example of Bloody Heart than the one I presented yesterday, I stumbled across a veritable forest of herrei at eye level. Admittedly, the examples hanging from almost every tree trunk were not the lovely globose shape you'd find occurring where the lichen could expand horizontally over a supporting framework of finer twigs, but they were certainly herrei and, even more surprisingly, the dominant species in this one corner of Mount Rainier's woods. Unfortunately, I did not have a GPSr with me, so I painted a mental X on the side of the metaphorical boat so I can find the location again. Thanks for the wake-up call, herrei; objectivity is a tough tool to keep honed.
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