Sunday, 22 May 2016

Lichen hunting in Slovakia!

Our good friends in Slovakia invited us to a week of lichen hunting in the Tatra mountains. What a wonderful oppotunity to get to know a fascinating part of Europe, collect material for various projects, and further develop friendship!

But first, a little pre-excursion to Vienna. The central part of the city is a lichen desert, only Phaeophyscia orbicularis and Xanthoria parietina were seen. But at the Belvedere pallas, we saw something really interesting: Xanthoria parieting starting out as a 'Jugendparasit' on Physcia dubia. This has been reported before, but very rarely - and we have only seen X. polycarpa acting like this in Scandinavia.


Sorry for the poor image quality, the picture was taken in the hotel room through a cheap hand lens.


After this mindblowing experience, we (Siri and Einar) met Alica, Mika, and Håkon at Vienna airport and drove to Stupava near Bratislava for a nice barbeque at Alica's home. Tomorrow it all starts!

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