Cladonia imperialisThis very attractive Cladonia is not uncommon in higher parts of the mountain ranges of SE Brazil. These seem to be close to C. calycantha, C. verticillata, C. rappii and C. cervicornis ssp verticillata (from the photos in the Brodo et al book). However, this species looks much more spectacular, with more numerous and more regular "branches" forming the cups.Cladonia imperialis Ahti & Marcelli, Bibl. Lichenol. 58: 19. 1995. Type: Brazil. Minas Gerais, Mun. Itamonte, Parque Nacional de Itatiaia, km 7 on highway to Agulhas Negras, 1993 M.P. Marcelli, T. Ahti & O. Yano 28055 (SP, holotype; B, CANB, FH, H, NY, RB, isotypes).Patricia will verify this identification with Dr Marcelli (one of the authors who described the species C. imperialis) in the next few days. It certainly looks very like the specimen in the virtual herbarium at NYBG - search at [http://sciweb.nybg.org/Science2/vii2.asp] (bearing in mind that the photo here is of live material while the NYGB image is of a dried, somewhat compressed specimen).Patrícia Jungbluth has just confirmed with Marcelo Marcelli that this is Cladonia imperialis. She also informed me that this lichen has also been found in Serra do Caparaó and the Serra do Cipó, so all of the known occurrences are in SE Brazil. For the moment, I believe it's the only (identified??) image of the live organism in the field, though that may very soon change since Patricia will be visiting Itatiaia soon and will attempt to take some more photos.