https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/55576-Xanthoria-parietina
The lichen on street trees favors high levels of nitrogen in the air and is therefore a good indicator of air pollutants from cars.
The lichen on street trees favors high levels of nitrogen in the air and is therefore a good indicator of air pollutants from cars.
Common Sunburst Lichen (Xanthoria parietina)
Xanthoria parietina is a foliose, or leafy, lichen. It has wide distribution, and many common names such as common orange lichen, yellow scale, maritime sunburst lichen and shore lichen. It can be found near the shore on rocks or walls (hence the epithet parietina meaning 'on walls'), and also on inland rocks, walls, or tree bark. It was chosen as a model organism for genomic sequencing (planned in 2006) by the US Department of Energy Joint (Source: Wikipedia, 'Xanthoria parietina', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthoria_parietina, CC BY-SA 3.0 . Photo: (c) John Thayer, all rights reserved, uploaded by John Thayer)
