Notes: Locality: Cypress Grove trail

The last two photos show Dendrographa and the alga Trentepohlia sharing the branches of wind and fog swept trees near the tip of Cypress Point. That’s an interesting association because Trentepohlia is the photobiont of Dendrographa.

Identification: Two species of Dendrographa occur along the coast of California and are distinguished as follows (Tehler in Nash et al., vol. 1, 2002, pp.165-168; translations of technical terms from a glossary by Bruce Ryan):
Dendrographa alectoroides — terminal branches and lateral ecorticate branchlets terete (= more or less circular in cross-section); medulla coalescent (= hyphae fused together)
Dendrographa leucophaea — terminal branches and lateral ecorticate branchlets complanate (= flattened); medulla byssoid (= cottony)
The terminal branches in these photos seem to be terete, indicating Dendrographa alectoroides.

References:
Sundin, Rikard, and Anders Tehler, 1996, The Genus Dendrographa (Roccellaceae), The Bryologist, Vol. 99, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 19-31.
Wright, Darrell, What happened to Dendrographa minor?, Bulletin of the California Lichen Society, Volume 3, No. 2, Winter 1996.
Dendrographa of North America