#Recordoftheweek is Tremella ramalinae on Ramalina fraxinea, a new record for Wales! On Friday 8/12/23 Yusef, Steve, and I went for an outing to look for lichens in a new tetrad. Quite early on during the walk, Yusef picked up a fallen branch with a large leafy lichen (Ramalina fraxinea), which was covered in an orange/pink lichenicolous fungus. Lichenicolous fungi are a group of fungi that live exclusively on lichens [1]. This one turned out to be Tremella ramalinae, the first record of this species in Wales!
“As ever, the ‘there’s always something’ best turn up was Tremella ramalinae, new for Wales! The ‘blobs’ on the Ramalina fraxinea. There is a cluster of records for it in NE Scotland and a couple from SW England, but it has not been picked up before in Wales. It is (excluding things in the pipeline) Cardiganshire’s 183rd species of lichenicolous fungus” [2]
| [1] | D. L. Hawksworth, “The lichenicolous fungi of Great Britain and Ireland: an overview,” The Lichenologist, 2003. |
| [2] | S. Chambers, 2023. |
