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Before starting the identification of lichens, we recommend to study at least one of the many good
introductory texts of Lichenology. This brief summary shows the main characters that are used for
the identification of lichens. The Italian version was prepared as an aid in the first Lichenology Labs
for students of Systematic Botany at the University of Trieste, and is associated to all interactive
identifications keys of project
Dryades
devoted to lichens. The English version has been prepared for
the key to lichens of Sri Lanka (Weerakoon & Nimis, 2015). A comprehensive glossary is also
included. All images are released with a CC BY-SA-3.0 licence, which means that anybody can use
them, provided that both the Author (A. Moro) and the licence are cited.
GROWTH-FORMS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE
One of the first things you have to learn to identify lichens is to recognize their major growth-forms.
Fruticose lichens
: they develop in 3 dimensions, with extremely variable forms (thread-like, cup-
shaped, bushy, etc.). In the following, we give some examples.
Thread-like fruticose lichens (
Usnea).
Thread-like fruticose lichens (
Bryoria).
Fruticose thalli of
Ramalina
.
