Macrolichens of North America is an attempt to organize access to online visual resources (photographs and locality maps) for the macrolichens of Canada and the United States. It includes access to the photographic contributions of the Mushroom Observer community, the Burke Museum, and Ways of Enlichenment, the comprehensive North American collections of CNALH and Sharnoff, and relevant parts of the magnificent western palaearctic photographic collections of Poumarat, Seawright, Silverside, the Stridvall's, Sutcliffe, and Timdal.
The checklists forming the framework of this enterprise and the taxonomy of the genera and species of macrolichens are from Esslinger, June 2010; higher categories are from Myconet.
This is very much a work in progress. The files for Peltigera, Pyxine, and Umbilicaria indicate the concept we are trying to implement, and the files for the remaining genera are beginning to move in that direction. According to the present representation, there are 146 genera and 1,474 species of macrolichens in North America. Approximately 73% of those genera and 27% of the species are illustrated on these pages by more than 1,450 photographs contributed by the Mushroom Observer community. A resolute lichenologist following all of these links would see something approaching 16,000 photos.
In passing, it's interesting to compare the figure of 146 genera of North American macrolichens with the total of 635 genera included in the current Cumulative Checklist for the Lichen-forming, Lichenicolous and Allied Fungi of the Continental United States and Canada.
There is much more to explore in these references on North American lichens, regional lichen floras, and accounts of some distinguished North American lichenologists.
See the colorful Macrolichens of North America for access to the North American macrolichen observations on Mushroom Observer.
