I Really be Likin' Lichen

OK, OK, I'm sorry, I know that my title is not original (borrowed from an advertisement), but it is clever, and expresses how I feel about lichen.

Lichen first entered my conscious when I was but a boy...the same time that many of the wonders of nature that I am particularly fond of did. Also, as with many of such wonders, lichen first latched onto my soul during a visit to Yosemite.

I can still recall walking through an evergreen forest with my parents and siblings. The delightfully calming aroma of pine needles filling the air; the ground a soft carpet of decomposing forest duff...pine needles, pine cones, pieces of wood and bark and, wait, what's this? An "abstract art" looking life form, an almost fluorescent toothpaste green. They're dotting the trees about us, but I spot one on the ground. Picking it up, I find that this one too, is clinging to bark, but this bit of bark has fallen to the ground. Showing it to my mom, I learn that this beautiful little object is called lichen.

There are 3 types of lichen: crustose grow very closely to the rock and have no leaves, foliose have small leaves that grow up from the rock, and fruticose, which have little shoots growing up and often remind me of lilliputian forests, sometimes they hang off of trees and resemble spanish moss. This is my favorite type. There are between 18,000 - 25,000 species of lichen, depending on where you go for information. A new species of lichen (Altectoria sarmentosa) was found in Yosemite just a couple of years ago.

Lichen are beautiful, adding soft splashes of color - variety of color and texture to rock that often otherwise would be somewhat monotonous. When I see lichen I envision the Creator daubing the landscape here and there with His paintbrush.

What is more, they are fascinating, an amazing design. They are a composite organism of fungus and algae. Fungi can't make food on their own. They usually get their nourishment from acting as either decomposers or as parasites. In this symbiotic relationship fungi provide the "skin", allowing algae to grow where it otherwise could not, and algae provide the food through photosynthesis. They rely on light, air and minerals as food source, most of the minerals coming from rainwater. They play an important role in the ecosystem, breaking down rock so that mosses, and later, larger plants can get a foothold.

There is so much more that could be said about lichen, but an in-depth article about lichen is beyond the scope of this blog (if you want to learn more, check out these links: concord.org, University of Vermont and Yahoo Education.)