Looks like a frayed shirt. Ragged parmelia has a flat, leafy, grey body – pale grey to bluish-grey, sometimes with a hint of green. Lobes are broad and rounded, spreading across the bark like a map of a foreign country. But the edges are the story. Deeply frilled, torn, and ragged – like a piece of cloth chewed by a dog or a shirt worn for too long. The lichen that cannot commit to a smooth edge. What makes it special is the frills. One of the most distinctive lichens in New Zealand. The margins are covered in a dense fringe of tiny, hair-like projections called cilia. These cilia give the edge a fuzzy, ragged appearance, as if the lichen is trying to grow in every direction at once. The lichen of the messy desk, the one that spreads out without a plan. The surface of the lobes is smooth and shiny, often with a network of white lines (pseudocyphellae). The underside is black and covered in a sparse mat of rhizines. Unlike the hammered shield lichen, which holds on with a death grip, this one is a little looser, a little more relaxed. A partnership – a fungus and an alga living together. It grows in humid, sheltered locations where air is damp and bark is rough. It also produces soralia – powdery granules on the margins and surface that break off and grow into new lichens. A master of fragmentation, a plant that reproduces by crumbling. To find ragged parmelia is to find the frilly grey patch on the bark. Flat, leafy, torn – a living piece of fringe on the tree. Run your finger over the edge and feel the cilia, the tiny hairs that make it ragged. The lichen of the messy edge, the one that looks like it cannot commit to a shape.