365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Seen In A Different Light
Day 113: I have to admit that I have been in a foul mood, so dark that even science failed to pull me out of it yesterday, and for that I apologize to my readers. Today, I am seeing things in a different light, quite literally. The Usneas I had brought home from Orting were eluding identification until I put two of them under UV this morning. Despite some minor and acceptable morphological variation, both proved to be Usnea subfloridana, a bushier and shorter species than U. pacificana (which is also UV+). A Ramalina on the same twig also yielded a positive reaction to UV, if not to my efforts to identify it conclusively. My mood improved substantially once I'd put a name to the specimen.
Labels:
levee trail,
Orting,
Usnea subfloridana,
UV+ reaction
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