This speckly little gem is Punctelia subrudecta. In real life, it measures about an inch across, so this picture is considerably larger than life-sized. It's another new addition to the garden list, found while I was poking around the Japanese Cherry tree in the middle of the garden a few days ago. Lichens are certainly easier to find when the leaves are off the trees; these were on the top side of one of the bigger branches, where they'll be well-shaded for most of the growing season.
The rather flat, rounded lobes are finely sprinkled with tiny, crusty white spots called pseudocyphellae. This is where the little bundles of fungal and algal cells form soralia, which allow the lichen to propagate when they break off in wind and rain. And to think that all this time, this lichen was lurking in plain sight — just in plain sight some eight feet off the ground!
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