Ramalina Ach.

BRANCHES: solid or hollow, generally flattened, pale yellowish- to grayish-green, with elongate to linear white markings (pseudocyphellae)
CORTEX: thin, prosoplectenchymatous, underlain by supportive chondroid strands (characteristic of this genus)
MEDULLA: loose to entirely absent
APOTHECIA: substipitate to stipitate discs; spores 1(-3)-septate, hyaline
PYCNIDIA: almost always pale, laminal, conidia bacilliform
CHEMISTRY:* cortex KC+ gold (usnic acid)

Worldwide, coastal to alpine.

Common Name: Bush, Cartilage, and Strap Lichens
Family: Ramalinaceae

Shrubby or beard-like lichens, typically growing on trees in humid or foggy regions (e.g. near ponds where mist rises early every morning), generally with flattened, stiff, grayish branches.

Branches and twigs of trees and shrubs, occ. on siliceous rock, very rarely soil. Typically in humid or often-foggy, but well-lit places.

Niebla cephalota is a sorediate corticolous species distinguished by its distinctive bluish-grayish powdery, capitate soralia and terete, stiff branches. All other species of Niebla grow exclusively on rocks within stone’s throw of the sea; they have much thicker cortex and are typically conspicuously black spotted from their dark, immersed pycnidia.

Other unrelated genera can resemble Ramalina, especially pendent, beard-like forms:

Note on Usnea: this genus is immediately distinguishable in the field by a simple test. Gently pull on a branch until it starts to break: if the cortex breaks first, revealing a tough wiry central cord (“like a rubber band” in Brodo’s words), then it is Usnea.

Note on Ramalina thrausta: I find this species very difficult to distinguish from Alectoria sarmentosa. Both form very fine, pale yellowish-green, pendent beards (atypical for Ramalina). However R. thrausta has tips that curl up and develops little granules.