Description: This is a common red-fruited species of peaty soils and rotting wood. The stout stems (podetia) grow from deeply incised platy squamules and terminate in a shock of narrow tapering branches topped with red discs. In well-developed specimens these narrow branches sometimes expand to form cups with finger-like margins also bearing red discs or smaller, red-tipped pycnidia (like discs in miniature).

Key Identification Features:

• In profile this species resembles a standing dead tree (green to grey-green) with its dead branches red-tipped or topped with red discs. The branches are usually scaly below and sorediate above
• Unlike C. diversa (which is yellow-green) it lacks cups directly above the stems (podetia); it differs from C. floerkeana in its narrow, tapering branches ending in discs or cups and the Pd + orange reaction of the thallus.

Original text submitted by Simon Davey

Distribution Map from NBN: Cladonia polydactyla at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Cladonia polydactyla at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.