Description: The ‘jelly lichen’ Collema fragrans is a rare species of rain or wound tracks on nutrient-enriched bark. The tiny (0-0.5cm diam.), deeply-lobed thallus — some with spiny outgrowths — forms tidy, cushion-like rosettes. When discs are present, these are often abundant and crowded. The asci (spore sacs) are (four- ) to eight-spored; spores submuriform. Owing to the demise of elm, its populations have crashed dramatically in Britain. In Ireland, there is only one nineteenth-century record which comes from near Bantry, County Cork. Though presumed extinct in Ireland, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that relict populations still occur in the south-west.

Key Identification Features:

• Thallus tiny, forming button-like, olive-black cushions on nutrient-rich bark
• Favours wound tracks on trees such as elm, basic-barked oak and beech.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

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

iNaturalist: Scytinium fragrans at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.