Speckled Greenshield

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List

not listed

NatureServe

NNR - Unranked
SNR - Unranked

Minnesota

not listed

Description

Speckled Greenshield is a common, medium-sized, shield lichen. It occurs in Europe, Africa, North America, and South America. It occurs in the United States east of the Great Plains, in the west in the southern Rocky Mountains, and on the West Coast of California. It occurs across southern Canada from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. It is found on the bark of both deciduous and coniferous trees in open woodlands and on trees along roadsides. It also grows on rock, especially granite, gneiss, and sandstone, but rarely on limestone.

The vegetative body (thallus) is a leaf-like (foliose) rosette that is divided into lobes. It is usually 1½″ to 5″ (4 to 13 cm) in diameter but can be up to 8″ (20 cm) in diameter. It may be weakly or tightly attached to the surface.

The lobes are narrow, irregular, flat, and 1⁄16″ to ⅜″ (2 to 9 mm) wide. Adjacent lobes touch but are not fused together. The upper surface is smooth or slightly wrinkled and greenish yellow to yellowish green, and it sometimes has white blotches. There are abundant white, large, up to 1⁄32″ (1 mm) in diameter, round or elongate pores (pseudocyphellae). The exposed tissue at these openings turns into reproductive patches (soralia) that produce abundant, white granules (soredia). These granular patches erupt through the surface and sometimes merge with adjacent patches. There are sometimes also crescent-shaped soralia on the lobe margins.

The lower surface of the thallus is black to dark chestnut brown except near the edges, which is pale brown. It is attached to the substrate (bark or wood) by numerous anchoring structures (rhizines). The rhizines are short, unbranched, and the same color as the lower surface. They are dense toward the center and usually absent near the margins.

Similar Species

Ecology

Substrate

Trees, rocks

Growth Form

Foliose

Habitat

Hosts

Deciduous and coniferous trees and rocks

Distribution

Sources

30, 77, 83.

Biodiversity occurrence data published by: Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas (accessed through the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas Portal, bellatlas.umn.edu. Accessed 6/15/2026).

The Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria (CNALH) https://lichenportal.org/cnalh/index.php. Accessed 6/15/2026.

Mycology Collections Portal (MyCoPortal) https://www.mycoportal.org/portal/collections/index.php). Accessed 6/15/2026.

Flavopunctelia flaventior (Stirt.) Hale in GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org. Accessed 6/15/2026.