Veteran Goat Willow, Beech, Pedunculate Oak and Hornbeam at Marstakes Common 26.04. Low Weald

Goat Willow 

Marstakes Common has a very large number of notable and veteran trees listed in the Woodlands Trust Ancient Tree Inventory. I wrote a post about the flowers (ancient woodland vascular plant indicators) of Marstakes Common and Grantham's Rough, the neighbouring wood, in my general nature blog Sim's Nature Notes,  A Pin-Head lichen, ancient trees, and spring flowers at Marstakes Common, South Chailey. 22.04.25

See the online Ancient Tree inventory map and click on the flag for details of these trees. 

Marstakes Common would originally have been wood pasture on lowland heath, used for pannage (pig grazing of acorns, beach nuts, fungi etc.) in Autumn. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the majority of Sussex commons were eradicated. Since grazing stopped at Marstakes the density of trees has increased greatly. At the north of the common (wood pasture still) you can get an impression of what the original common was like. Lichens need light to photosynthesise carbon from the air and water (via their algal/cyanobacterial photobionts). Lichen's do well on trees when there is light; pasture woodland is tone of the best habitats for epiphytic lichens; the more dense and shaped woods become the less lichen abundance and diversity 

Goat Willow, Salix caprea, 

On the trunk

Lepraria finkii, a "fluffy dust" lichen

Parmotrema perlatum, Black Stone Flower

Pyrrhospora quernea  

Lecidella eleachroma

On branches

Evernia prunastri, Oak Moss (not a moss!)

Punctelia subrudecta, Powdered Speckled Shield Lichen

Beech, Fagus sylvatica

On Trunk

Graphis scripta sensu lato (in a loose sense, may be a related lichen), a Writing Lichen

Enterographa crassa 

"A distinctive species often dominating large areas of trunk in pure mosaics of small interlocking waxy brown thalli, spotted with small dot like apothecia, which often line up in dendritic patterns". Very common in south. BLS Enterographa Crassa

A photo from: British Lichen Society showing the interlocking thalli the dendritic patterns of lined-up apothecia

Pertusaria hymenea

(Could be confused with Lecanora chlarotera when the wart holes look greenish/brownish as they do in this specimen)

Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus 

Pertusaria pertusa, Pepper-Pot Lichen

Many Hornbeams have little lichen diversity; their epiphytic lichens often consist just of wart lichens (Pertusaria genus spp.) and script lichens (Graphidiciea family spp.)

Oak, Quercus robur

In a field on the other side of the wall (south) boundarying Marstakes common

On Trunk

Calicium viride, a Pin Lichen

Flavoparmelia caperata, Common Greenshield Lichen, and Ramalina farinacea (looks like thin straps)

Pyrrhospora quernia

Green lichen with brown apothecia in middle