Talk:Lecanora

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Request for Assistance: Lecanora tartarea & Scottish Highland Dyes

The article Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands mentions Lecanora tartarea twice, but the article on 'Lecanora' makes no mention of it.

BTW - The text in Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands appears to have been copied more or less verbatim from Dwelly's entry dath, then formatted for Wiki.
The plant is mentioned in Edward Dwelly's Dictionary, Am Faclair Beag, online under
- The entry for dath. Look under 'red' and then 'crimson'.
  - Cf Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands
- The entry for corcar where it is also called "cudbear"
  - I believe Lecanora tartarea is also mentioned indirectly as "orchil" or "cudbear" at Use of lichens for dyeing
- I searched Am Faclair Beag for "corcar", and found "crotal nan lagan-maise corcar", which mentions yet another species: pink dimple lichen (Biatora sphaeroides)
  - There's no mention of Biatora sphaeroides in Wikipedia, except in the article on Celtic rain forest under Lichens.
Please also see the Wiki article on "Orcein" in the subsection called Cudbear. The article mentions lichens, but not which lichens. (Except for Roccella tinctoria.)
Apparently Lecanora tartarea is also mentioned in Brewster, Sir David (1832). Lichen. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. Retrieved 10 May 2014.

I would add Lecanora tartarea to the list of species in the article on Lecanora, but after a cursory look at EoL & searching for synonyms, I suspect that it has either been overlooked in both EoL and Wikipedia, has been reclassified\renamed, or both.

From these articles, it looks as if Lecanora tartarea or this class of "Orchil lichens"\"orchella weeds" were once economically important, and I am very interested in finding out more about them. If possible, I would love for someone to help me identify this lichen or group of lichens, but sadly, lichens are outside of my area of expertise. Even a pointer to a name would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Kibi78704 (talk) 02:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]