Cladonia pyxidata is a typical lichen. It has two types of thallus. Primary thallus is foliose, pale green colored and directly stuck on the substrate, either the soil o the rock. Secondary thallus that grows over primary one looks like a minute, 2 cm high, trumpet in greyish or blueish color. These trumpets are named podecia. Their surface is covered by grains that spread when rain kicks them and they reproduce the lichen. Cladonia pyxidata lives mainly in soil slopes in the shadow and in the basements of rocks.
Cladonia gr.pyxidata comprises a group of related species that differentiate according to the shape and the surface of the trumpets as the common trumpet lichen (Cladonia fimbriata).
[photos Jordi Badia (1st, 2nd and 4th) and Montserrat Porta (3rd)]
- See the article Més fums, menys líquens (= More smoke, less lichens), in Catalan, by Jordi Badia.