Plants of the Gila Wilderness
Presented in Association with the
Western New Mexico University Department
of Natural Sciences
Psora icterica (Mont.) Müll. Arg.
Fish Scale Lichen (or Yellow Scale Lichen)
Psora icterica is a bright yellow to greenish yellow squamulose lichen that grows in the open on seasonally flooded soils.
It can grow as either a large cushion of squamules, or as one or two squamules in isolated patches. The apothecia are biatorine
(no algae in the wall, and not carbonaceous) and sit as flattened or rounded red brown to blackish (older) spheres
on top of the thalli. They can be hard to identify as apothecia, especially since the rim disappears with age. No other
soil dwelling lichen in the Gila is bright yellow or greenish yellow and has blackish spherical apothecia on top of the thalli. The
younger thalli are along the margins of a cushion and are more greenish. The older yellow thalli are brighter yellow along their
margins. The photobiont is a green alga-- Myrmecia.
Please click on an image for a larger file.
Psora icterica, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, closeup, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, closeup, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, closeup, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, closeup, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, stereoscope photomicrograph of biatorine apothecium, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
Psora icterica, compound photomicrograph of biatorine apothecium, photo Russ Kleinman & Karen Blisard, Gila NF, Nun Overlook,
March 17, 2020
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