Day 83: This is how spooky stories begin: hands clawing up through the soil, wrinkled and darkened skin peeling back in shreds, yellow fingernails overgrown and seeking out victims. The Forest Zombies are coming to get you! You have to admit that the Peltigeras have a corner on "creepy" when it comes to their morphology, but the "fingernails" are in fact the apothecia (spore-producing structures) of these common lichens. Some "Pelts" are difficult to tell apart. Others, like Peltigera membranacea (Membranous Dog-lichen, above) are fairly easy, with naked-eye observation of the rhizines (root-like structures on the back of the lobes) being definitive. You should be able to tell it from any others, at least if you're brave enough to get close to a Forest Zombie.
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