Description: Wherever elder trees grow by sheltered, dusty tracks across Ireland this tiny filamentous lichen should be looked for. This shaded bark epiphyte is almost restricted to this host where it overgrows those surfaces less exposed to sunlight. The microscopic, densely branched filaments are green and could easily be mistaken for a thread-sized leafy liverwort. In places the thallus may coalesce into piles of soredia-like granules. Scattered in central and northern Ireland, rare in the south.

Key Identification Features:

• Lichen made up of green, much branched microscopic filaments that may degenerate into soredia-like granules
• On the shady bark of elder; also on elm.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

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

iNaturalist: Psoroglaena stigonemoides at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.