Usnea longissima

The lichen usnesa longissima (Oldman's Beard) are often regarded as the queen among lichens. Its easy understood when you see it in a moist spruce forest. With is often several meters long threads, it looks a lot like what many people hangs on the Christmas trees. In fact, usnea longissima was used on Christmas trees in Germany, where the tradition with Christmas trees started. It today extinct from the country due to logging and air pollution.



The species thrives in a light open moist spruce forest with long ecological continuity with trees in all hights and sizes. Long continuity means that the forest have been whit out impacts from fire, storms and logging for several hundred years. Its is vulnerable towards wind, drought and strong sunlight. Because of its ecological needs, you find it most abundant in north and east faced slopes and canyons. Usnea longissima are extinct from most European countries, and Norway have the European responsibility for the species. On the national redlist its considerate as vulnerable. In Trillemarka it grows on more than 300 trees in steep north faced slopes.