Stereocaulon evolutum Graewe

    Primary thallus soon excluded. Pseudopodetia, to 3-5 cm tall, erect, shrubby or in compact tufts, typically with the tips curved (palmate), strongly branched, with small and smooth squamules (phyllocladia), swollen and digitated-like with more or less cylindrical extensions, pale grey, pale grey-greenish. Apothecia rare, on pseudopodetia, terminal, flat, then slightly convex, brown-redish turningbrown-redish, exciple sometimes paler. Ascospores elongate, 3-septate. Photobiont: Trebouxioid. Chemical spot tests confusing unless done on filtering paper following acetone extraction: C-, K+ yellow, KC+ violet, Pd+/- faint yellow. On acid mossy rocks, notably schists. Easily confused with infertile specimen of Stereocaulon dactylophylum but the latter has more ascending -or less pendulous - branches, and is Pd+ orange.*