More than 70% of the trees in Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo have white lichen on their trunks (most jiote and most pimienta gorda trees escape lichen). There is rose-colored, orange, pink, reddish, light green and a few other colors of thin lichen on tree trunks (but white is over 70%, in some areas over 90%). We are looking for 3-dimensional lichen. Maria Alejandra Gutierrez, FLAAR Mesoamerica, found and photographed this lichen on the road between Yaxha and Nakum in mid-January 2019.
Camera Canon EOS-1D Xmark II, lens Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM; settings: f/2.8, speed 1/8000, ISO 1000.
Photo by Maria Alejandra Gutierrez
Photo by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth
with an IPhone Xs
We will try to find this branch the next time we are in the 17 km stretch between Yaxha and Nakum. Perhaps the crusty whitish lichen is curling up because the branch is no longer alive. I say this because over 90% of the lichen on millions of trees in the park is normally flat when on a growing tree trunk. Lichen is a different shape along the shores of Lake Yaxha on dead branches over the water (where the lake has risen and frees formerly on the old dry shore are now dead because the lake level has risen). However the lake shore lichen shape is because the branches are water soaked plus are one to two meters above the water level (the lower trunks are in one to two meters of risen lake level).
Since we do not have a PhD in lichen or mushrooms, I am not able to identify the thin red spaghetti under the white lichen (in the photograph at the left). But it is rare to find spaghetti-like lichen or mushrooms in the park. Red Cuscuta parasitic vines are common, but this is not Cuscuta. Perhaps the thin orange spaghetti growth is either lichen or moss or some other growth. We will work at finding more of this and photographing it with better focus next time.
The Italian pasta-like material in the photograph at the left has a Cuscuta vine going under and around it. Cuscuta is “everywhere” along the shores of Lake Yaxha and in dry areas between Yaxha and Nakum. But I photographed this Italian pasta mass because it looks to me more like 3-dimensional lichen than the thin orange spaghetti in the photo at the left.
I am interested in finding and photographing all 3-dimensional lichens since these are more likely to be a source of colorants. The Aztec and their neighbors used both mushrooms and lichen for colorants. The Maya had mushrooms available and we have found the colorant mushroom all over Yaxha and Nakum and in between. But we have not yet found lichen, nor have we yet found good photo albums and checklists of lichens of Peten. For Tikal there is a thesis on mushrooms of Tikal. Would help to have a thesis or dissertation on lichens of Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo.
Posted Jan. 30, 2019
