Cladonia confusa

Widespread in tropical America and also recorded in New Zealand, Australia and parts of Africa, it is a bushy, ground-growing lichen. Its pale yellow-green branches repeatedly divide, often into three nearly equal branches, forming dense mats or rounded cushions. The branch surfaces have a fine, felt-like texture, and the junctions between branches are open. Tiny brown reproductive discs may form at the tips. In Colombia, it grows on soil and organic litter in páramo grasslands, beneath low shrubs, around bogs and in some Andean forests. Photographed in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.