Green Shield Lichen

When we went out on January 18, 2012 and it was very cold. We went out at about 10:30 am daylights savings time and stayed out for 10 minutes. The thermometer read 3º Celsius. There was a very strong windchill so it felt like 0ºC. The wind blew at 28 kilometers per hour with gust of 42. We went to the woods out back of our school, Massabesic Middle School, and searched for lichen. The coordinates for our lichens latitude is 43.582382º and the longitude is -70.701668. We originally were searching for animal tracks but we had a big rain the day before which washed away all the tracks. The snow was hard and crusty so if there was any tracks they stayed there. We found tons of lichen but we only found about 3-4 different types. I got assigned a type of lichen that was green witch was about The lichen was not sticking out from the tree, but hugging the tree closely. The lichen was dominating the tree with almost every square inch lichen covering it. This lichen is not by itself but with a bunch of other types of lichen like a version similar in size characteristics except for color. This other species was a white gray color. And the final type of lichen on that same tree was a light green lichen that hanged down in a fuzzy way. After looking at the lichen I think I matched this lichen to the species: “Green Shield Lichen” or Flavoparmelia caperata. This lichen is sharp and grows on the trees and rocks and is very common in Maine. Characteristics that match the Green Shield Lichen are that it is green and grows on trees, the lichen is sharp and pointy, the lichen dominates the tree along with about two other unclassified species, the lichen is dry and crusty and grows on oak and pine trees. The kingdom of this lichen is Fungi, the division is Ascomycota, the class is Lecanoromycetes, the order us Lecanorales, the family Parmeliaceae, the genus is Flavoparmelia and the species is Flavoparmelia caperata.