Fruiting Lichen

I found some really fun lichen in the forest.  

The little red knobs at the end of the lichen are something called fruiting bodies.  Something to do with how they reproduce...which sort of means I took a photo of lichen in an act of intimacy.  hmmm....lichen porn?  Well, birds do it, bees do it, and it's only natural that lichen does it.

Anyway, this is on an old Douglas Fir stump, the bark takes ages to rot, but lichen loves it.

Also tiny cute mushrooms

And this weird thing which I think is lichen.  Most of it of it was growing in the detritus beneath the Western Red Alders, and this one was growing on a stump that was cut down only about 3 years ago.  

Then again, on closer look, it reminds me of a mushroom.  It grew up in about a week and if this was the fruiting body of a lichen, wouldn't it have some sort of year round substance to it?  I'll see if it survives the snow and take more photos of it next time I go for a walk.

I'm not gathering any of these for dye... though their is lots of them.  Right now, I'm only gathering things that aren't attached to anything.  I'm certain even the lichen that blows down from the trees has some roll to play in the forest, so I'm limiting my collection to less than 25% of the blow downs.