Lichen Walk – Gleniffer Braes and Bardrain Wood

28^th February 2026

This was our fourth lichen walk and the third that has gone to Gleniffer Braes. Nine of us met at the highest car park near the electricity sub-station and headed off towards Bardrain Wood.

The fence posts along the edge of the path hold many species of lichen. These are ones that are often associated with more acidic tree species (pine, larch etc) such as Hypogymnia physodes. There are also with specialists that live on old worked timber and rotten wood such as the Cladonias. Cladonias with their “pixie cup” and “reindeer moss” podetia are always popular and the group made slow progress as many stopped to take photos of these lichens.

We eventually reached a small stand of trees where the first Scottish record of the lichenocolous fungi Nectriopsis physciicola was made. This also gave everyone a chance to look at commoner lichens found on trees.

We moved on slowly and found some “tinned peaches” Coenogonium luteum on a pine tree. This is always a nice lichen to find. There was also a “not obvious” white crust on one of the stones which was sampled and later found to be Lepra excludens.

The next stand of fence posts which had an even greater assemblage of cladonias and progress slowed even further.

A few people had to leave earlier and eventually only five of us made it to the drystone wall above Bardrain Wood. Here we found lots of Stereocaulon vesuvuanium, Lepra corallina and Diploschistes scruposus.

Once we were in Bardrain Wood the main target was to find a specific tree that had some uncommon lichens. There was a bit of random wandering by the group leader until the tree was spotted. This particular larch supports a very healthy population of Bryoria fuscescens which is an indicator of clean air. There are also significant colonies of Hypocenemyces scalaris.  There are also lots of Cladonias on the tree and around its base. It seems likely that many of these lichens were on the sapling when it was planted and have grown as the tree has.

Once we had a good look at this tree we headed back to the car park at a brisk pace. The trig point proved of interest to the lichenologists in the group and we found a number of species on it. This included what turned out to be the fourth record of Cologaya pusilla for Renfrewshire.

A record of all the species found on the day wasn’t kept but we found over 20 of the 75 species that have been recorded in these monads. A full list of the species recorded for them is below.

Report by Craig Postlethwaite

Photographs by Bill Gray, Gordon Phillips, Monica Lennon, Alison Adams and Craig Postlethwaite

Download a printable pdf of the report

Species List