Description: Nicknamed ‘bats’ wings’ by lichenologists it’s easy to see why. This epiphytic ‘jelly lichen’ has blackish lobes with radiating ridges (like a skin membrane stretched across bone) studded with tiny projections (isidia). Discs are rare. Best looked for on old wayside trees near country gardens and hotels, estates, golf courses, etc., where they favour the well-lit bark of tree trunks — rarely the upper branches. Throughout Ireland.

Key Identification Features:

• Thallus black like bats’ wings with longitudinal ridges covered in isidia
• Discs very rare; on big wayside trees, for example, sycamore, ash, horse-chestnut.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

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

iNaturalist: Collema furfuraceum at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.