<p>Scientific Name: <i>Vulpicida canadensis</i> (Rasanen) J.-E. Mattsson &amp; M. J. Lai
Common Name: Brown-Eyed Sunshine Lichen
Certainty: positive (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://bornnaturalist.org/notes/20080530#34">notes</a>)
Location: Canadian Rockies; Wells Gray Provincial Park; Edgewood Blue
Date: 20080530
</p><p>I've seen these colorful lichens grow much larger farther south in California.  But I've never seen them grow quite so abundantly.  They seem to love dead or live lodgepole pine, especially on bluffs or steep open slopes.  This particular tree was covered nearly head to foot.
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The black lichens sharing this twig are the closely-related <i>Kaernefeltia merrillii</i>.  They might not look related, and lichenologists have separated them almost from the very beginning, but new molecular evidence is making us think twice.  Color isn't everything...
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/7147684@N03">Jason Hollinger</a>
CC BY 2.0
<p><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/2548928219/">Brown-Eyed Sunshine Lichen</a>
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<ul><li>Uploaded by <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Amada44" title="User:Amada44">Amada44</a></li></ul>