4th July 2025

Churchyard Lichen Survey

A few SWFV members enjoyed a thoroughly absorbing couple of hours in the churchyard today with lichen expert Keith Hillier-Palmer. Keith is Lichen Recorder for Kent and Sussex and kindly agreed to visit us and survey the churchyard for its lichens. He led us through the rather tricky identification process with practised ease and made the whole process both fascinating and interesting.

He will, in due course, provide us with a list of todays finds which will be added to the website. Meanwhile, here is one of the 20 or so lichens that we found.

This is Lecanora campestris on a limestone headstone. The black fruiting bodies are quite large and under a lens resemble little jam tarts! The image below shows this more clearly.

A close-up of Lecanora campestris showing the fruiting bodies in more detail.