February11_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Photos - Common trees growing here are Pinus Ponderosa (Ponderosa Pine) frame left, and Pseudotsuga Menziesii (Douglas Fir) frame right. Growing on the bark (center frame) is a colorful crop of Letharia Vulpina (Wolf Lichen) and Hypogymnia Physodes (Hooded Bone, Hooded Tube Lichen). Hooded Bone is the grayish green lichen at the center of the photo: It is a tree loving lichen that can also be found on boulders in open to shaded sites at all forested elevations. The yellow colored patches growing on the bark beside the Hooded Bone lichen is a medium sized, upright shrub lichen with bright greenish sulfur yellow branches. They are commonly found on tree branches or stumps at all forested elevations. Interior natives used this lichen for the yellow dye to color fur, moccasins, feathers, wood and a variety of other artistic instances such as face and body paint. Coastal and Alaskan groups would often trade with interior tribes to obtain the lichen. The lichen contains a poisonous substance - vulpinic acid.

Photos - L-R - A ground loving lichen, Peltigera Aphthosa (Freckle Pelt Lichen) sharing a small patch with rock moss in a secluded area beside the Cliff Trail in Glen Canyon. Freckle Pelt is a large leaf lichen with broad lobes with the color of the upper surface a bright green to dark green with scattered dark warts (cephalodia) and the under surface a cottony, pale color. The leaves also do not have conspicuous veins and have relatively few holdfasts. The leaves bear semi-erect to erect, flat, brown disc-like apothecia located over the lobe margins when present. This species of lichen is usually found on, or in close association with moss in humus, rocks, or decaying logs in higher elevations to alpine from Alaska to New Mexico.

Cliff trail with a shady overhang of trees - a lovely place to retreat from the hot sunshine.

The crusty patch on the rock at the center is Porpidia Diversia a crust lichen found throughout North America - The Thallus usually light greenish gray to whitish (Gowan 1989). The black apothica on the surface are its reproductive structures

Hoodoo (also tent rock, fairy chimney, earth pyramid) is a tall thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Hoodoos are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements.

They are mainly located in the desert in dry, hot areas. In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward. (Geology purists do note that only a tall formation should be called a hoodoo; any other shape is called a 'hoodoo rock'.)

Hoodoos range in size from that of an average human to heights exceeding a 10-story building. Hoodoo shapes are affected by the erosional patterns of alternating hard and softer rock layers. Minerals deposited within different rock types cause hoodoos to have different colors throughout their height.

Hoodoos are commonly found in the High Plateaus region of the Colorado Plateau and in the Badlands regions of the Northern Great Plains (both in North America). While hoodoos are scattered throughout these areas, nowhere in the world are they as abundant as in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park, located in the U.S. state of Utah. See Balancing Rock Utah.

Hoodoos are a tourist attraction in the Cappadocia region of Turkey where houses have been carved from these formations. These rock formations were depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 50 new lira banknote of 2005-2009.

Photos - Frames left and right: A Hoodoo at Glen Canyon rim.

Center frame: Lichen and Moss side by side. Xanthoparmelia Coloradoensis (Colorado Rock Frog) and Dicranoweisia Crispula (Yellowgreen Cushion Moss)

Click here for more photos of Glen Canyon Regional Park for this day.