Introduction

‘The Montane Heathland Lichen Guide’ is a new field guide aimed at hill walkers, naturalists, field ecologists or anyone interested in learning more about the lichens to be found in mountain environments. The book covers everything you need to know to start looking at lichens in easy, non-technical language and covers all of the species that you are most likely to see in montane heath habitats.

Twenty seven of the most common or conspicuous species are fully illustrated with high quality photographs and another twenty four species are covered in the text with notes on how to identify them in the field and how to separate similar-looking species. The 50-page A5 size book is designed with outdoor use in mind and is printed in full colour throughout on tough waterproof paper.

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Price: £10.99 (P&P included)
(Special reduced price for British Lichen Society and British Ecological Society Members: £8.99)

Order-form or contact j.lund@macaulay.ac.uk.

Some excerpts from the book and example species pages are shown below.

Scope of the Guide

As a hill walker you may have noticed lichens as the things that crunch under foot on your way up that munro, or make sitting on the vegetation at lunch breaks a spiky experience. You may also have noticed their huge variety of forms and colours, covering every available surface in this seemingly inhospitable environment. This guide is here to help you put some names to these fascinating and sometimes bizarre organisms. If it sits in the rucksack and tempts you to look a bit closer while you are out and about in the hills, or maybe even to delve deeper into the world of ‘lichenology’ then it will have achieved its aim.

This small book aims to give you a user-friendly introduction to the lichen species you are most likely to spot on the prostrate montane shrub and moss heaths in the mountains of Scotland, England and Wales. It focuses on species that grow on the ground or on other plants and mosses (called ‘terricolous’ lichens) and particularly the larger or more obvious species that first draw the eye when you start to look at lichens. A complete list of lichen species recorded from montane heathlands is given at the end of the book to help you find those not covered here in more comprehensive floras and field guides such as Dobson (2005) or Purvis et al (1992). Mountains, however, are one area where lichenologists are still finding new species, so there is always the chance of an exciting new discovery!

The guide was sponsored by the British Lichen Society

Example pages