“Plant” of the day: parmotrema lichen

Dead tree branches often bring lichens with them when they fall to the ground; sometimes a single branch will have many different types of lichen all growing close together. One of my favorites looks like papery lettuce-shaped leaves that are pale aqua-gray on top, and dark beneath. A fringe of eyelash-like hairs decorate the edges of the leaves. This is a genus known as parmotrema; there are well over two dozen species of it in the US, according to the USDA PLANTS database.