A Bright Orange Trunk
Introduction
The photograph on this page of A Bright Orange Trunk by Ian Dodds as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
A Bright Orange Trunk
Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 27 Jun 2022
There were other trunks covered in the same stuff nearby, but none quite as vivid as this. The tree was a spindly ash, and having done a bit of online investigating I am confident enough to say that this is a type of alga as opposed to a lichen (though nowhere near confident enough to put it in the title, unlike the more knowledgeable contributors on here!) When alga becomes algae I have no idea - presumably alga are tiny and this is a collection, and therefore the picture shows algae, all belonging to the same species of alga. The species I am plumping for here is Trentepohlia aurea, mostly because it is described as being orange and one of the most common algae found on trees in Britain and Ireland by various sources. This was taken from quite a grassy area a short distance from one of the many official paths through this Woodland Trust wood, which for no apparent reason aren't shown on even the largest scale online maps.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
55.869849
Longitude
-3.519877