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Low toxicity🍽️ Edible

🪨 Rock tripe

Umbilicaria spp. · Lichens (Umbilicariaceae)

🌲 Boreal
🧠 To remember it“Rock tripe calms your hunger, but never truly feeds you” — it's an extreme survival food, not a reliable source of calories.
Rock tripe — Umbilicaria spp.

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Foliose lichen (a symbiotic association between fungus and alga, not a plant) forming large, leathery circular lobes, gray to brown, attached to the rock by a single central point like a belly button (hence the name Umbilicaria). The underside is often blackish and rough. Grows directly on exposed rocks, especially granite, with extremely slow growth.

  1. circular foliose blade attached to the rock by a single central point
  2. rough, blackish underside
  3. leathery texture that becomes brittle when dry
  4. grows directly on bare rock, never on soil
Size5-20 cm in diameter per blade
Floweringdoes not flower (lichen)
Habitatrocky outcrops, especially granite, throughout the entire circumpolar boreal and arctic zone, also found at high altitudes

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous look-alikesaucun

To tell them apart: the circular foliose blade attached to bare rock by a single central belly-button-like point, never on soil or wood, distinguishes this lichen from any dangerous species; soaking and prolonged boiling to eliminate gyrophoric acid remain mandatory

🍽️ Eating it

Partsentire thallus
Seasonavailable year-round, including in winter
Tastebitter and acrid when unprepared, bland and slightly gelatinous after prolonged cooking

Preparation : famine food exclusively: prolonged soaking followed by several successive boilings, changing the water each time to eliminate the bitter and digestively irritating gyrophoric acid; the main carbohydrate (pustulan) is poorly digested by humans, so the actual nutritional value remains low despite the volume

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • historically used in dyeing (certain Umbilicaria species yield purple or brown dyes)
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.