BC Conservation Data Centre: Species Summary
Letharia columbiana
brown-eyed wolf
| Scientific Name: | Letharia columbiana (Nutt.) J. W. Thomson | ||||||||||
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| English Name: | brown-eyed wolf | ||||||||||
| Classification / Taxonomy | |||||||||||
| Scientific Name - Concept Reference: | Esslinger, T.L. and R.S. Egan. 1995. A sixth checklist of the lichen-forming, lichenicolous, and allied fungi of the continental United States and Canada. The Bryologist 98(4):467-549. As supplied by USDA, NRCS from The PLANTS database. National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA. Version: November 19, 1997. | ||||||||||
| Classification Level: | Species | ||||||||||
| Species Group: | Lichen | ||||||||||
| Species Code: | LETHCOL | ||||||||||
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| Conservation Status / Legal Designation | |||||||||||
| Global Status: | G3G5 (Jan 2001) | ||||||||||
| Provincial Status: | S4 (Mar 2018) | ||||||||||
| BC List: | Yellow | ||||||||||
| Provincial FRPA list: | |||||||||||
| Provincial Wildlife Act: | |||||||||||
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| General Status Canada: | |||||||||||
| Ecology & Life History | |||||||||||
| General Description: | Almost always fertile, with large, dark brown apothecia up to 15 mm across, fringed with spiny branchlets; soredia and isidia absent; black pycnidia often abundant (Brodo et al. 2001). | ||||||||||
| Technical Description: | |||||||||||
| Diagnostic Characteristics: | Letharia vulpina is essentially identical to L. columbiana, but does not produce soredia and isidia (McCune and Geiser 2009). | ||||||||||
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| Habitats: (Type / Subtype / Dependence) |
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| Global Habitat Comments: | Common in subalpine forests, high plateaus and ridges to timberline, occasional in low-elevation forests (McCune and Geiser 2009). | ||||||||||
| Provincial Phenology: (1st half of month/ 2nd half of month) |
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| Elevation (m) (min / max): | Provincial: | ||||||||||
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| Pollinator: | |||||||||||
| Dispersal: |
ABIOTIC
Wind |
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| Provincial Inventory | |||||||||||
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| Ownership of occurrences (Known locations): | |||||||||||
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| Economic Attributes | |||||||||||
| Global Economic Comments: | Letharia columbiana, a wolf lichen, is used by Native Americans in California as arrow poison (sometimes mixed with snake venom), abd the Okanagan-Colville Indians have used it as an external medicine for sores, or an internal medicine for stomach disorders. The most common use of Letharia is as a source for bright yellow boiling water dye (Brodo et al. 2001). | ||||||||||
| Distribution | |||||||||||
| Endemic: | N | ||||||||||
| Global Range Comment: | Letharia columbiana occurs in the Pacific Northwest ranging from the southern portion of British Columbia south to California and southwest through northern Idaho and western Montana (Brodo et al. 2001). | ||||||||||
| Disjunct, more common elsewhere: | N | ||||||||||
| Peripheral, major distribution elsewhere: | N | ||||||||||
| Authors / Contributors | |||||||||||
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| Last Literature Search: | |||||||||||
| References and Related Literature | |||||||||||
Brodo, I. M., S. D. Sharnoff and S. Sharnoff. 2001. Lichens of North America. Yale University Press. New Haven and London. 795 pp. |
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Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for definitions of the data fields used in this summary report.
Suggested Citation:
B.C. Conservation Data Centre. Species Summary: Letharia columbiana. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jun 9, 2026).