Hill walk routes to climb in SW Scotland - also coastal paths and National Scenic Areas with maps, pictures and other useful information based on extensive local knowledge
Lochcraig Head from Megget Stane
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Speedwell. Speedwell. Speedwell.

33 As ever there is also plenty to see about you feet on these hill as well as sheep poo. The flower that you see in the picture above and the first two pictures below is I think a type of Speedwell.
In the fourth picture I have combined 4 shots together. The top left shot shows a boulder with lichen on it and the other three shots progressively zoom into that picture to bring out more detail of the lichen.
When writing this I thought I would check on "lichens" on the web and I came up with a site with wonderful pictures which made me realise that I don't really know the difference between "lichens" and "mosses" to the extent that though I would always have called what is on this stone lichen I suddenly wasn't so sure. Then I checked on sites that try to explain the difference and these got a bit heavy with loads of technical stuff for the layman like me. However here is a site that looks at lichens, algae and mosses on gravestones (which ties in well with the Dead for Cauld theme of our walk!) that makes me think this is indeed lichen though not of the foliose or fructicose varieties as they describe them -

A lichen is a composite organism, partly made up of a fungus and partly composed of algae. Lichens are capable of colonising a variety of materials, including trees and stone surfaces. Lichens can be divided into four broad groups of species, dependent on their growth forms:
1) leprose lichens, 2) crustose lichens, 3) foliose lichens, 4) and fructicose lichens.

Speedwell.
Speedwell.
Detail of Lichens.
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