A peek inside the world of tiny
Lichens are everywhere. You just have to put that phone down and notice.
Have you ever imagined the earth being perched upon the tip of a tiny pinhead with a giant’s finger ready to flick it with its finger? Okay. So, I’m the only one. You know by now just how much I LOVE beginning these posts in a most obscure way. Why should today be any different? Today’s topic…..an appreciation of all things small (no short jokes, please). Well, not ALL things. Just an unappreciated, unnoticed living community called Lichenville. (Lichens with a little moss tossed in).
So, just what the hello Dolly are lichens? My lazy, unscientific definition goes like this: those small patches of extremely slow-growing organic matter that may be found on the surfaces of rock, wood, masonry, roof shingles, slow-moving pedestrians, etc. that looks something like this:
Odds are you have plenty of this amazing stuff living all over your garden!
A scientist’s or botanist’s definition is as such: “lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an algae. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from it’s thallus shape (I had to look that one up. Thallus = composed of filaments or plates of cells ranging in size from unicellular to complex treelike forms) to it’s fruiting bodies. The alga can be either blue alga or green alga, otherwise known as cyanobacteria”. The US Forest Service. Wow! I LOVE learning stuff!
It goes on to say that there are approximately 3600 species of lichen in North America and like snowflakes, no two are alike. Although moss and lichens are both called non-vascular plants, only mosses are plants. (Check out one of my past posts that addresses moss https://garrymenendez.com/tiny-horticulture/
Mosses are included in a group of non-vascular plants called bryophytes and are believed to be the ancestors of the plants we see today like trees, flowers, and ferns. Lichens, on the other hand, are not similar in any way to mosses or other members of the plant kingdom. Mosses are very primitive and have plant-like structures that look and function like leaves, stems, and roots. They have chloroplasts throughout their entire bodies and can photosynthesize from all sides or their structures.
You just gotta love a species that can adapt to living on a metal post!
Lichens, on the other hand, are completely different. They do not have any roots, stems, or leaves and their chloroplasts are contained only in the algae on the top surface of the lichen. What lichens and mosses DO have in common are size and habitats. In fact, mosses retain water which is what lichens use to prolong their growth cycle.
COOL, BUT WHY SHOULD I GIVE A FLIP?
For those of us who walk with a limp, because our right brain makes our head tilt a bit, we see lichens as more of nature’s art. They’re just cool to look at. Think of the Pacific Northwest with its long drapes of “witch’s hair” Alectoria sarmentosa hanging from the branches of the old Douglas firs and Sitka spruce. Aside from their beauty, lichens provide a mode of survival in harsh environments where algae cannot normally survive. Since the fungus can protect its algae, these normally water-requiring organisms can live in dry, sunny climates without dying, as long as occasional rain showers or flooding to let them recharge and store food for the next drought period.
Because lichens allow algae to live all over the world in many different climates, they also provide a means to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis into oxygen. Take a breath, thank a lichen! (And yeah, trees too).
I dare you not to touch moss growing on a rock.
Sadly, as a society, we seem to only pay attention to the big and the loud (otherwise known as politics) but little things matter as well like earthworms, mycorrhiza, insects, AND lichens! So, when you can’t take anymore news or doom-scrolling, go outside in search of the small and nearly unseen. There’s a whole nother world out there!
Till next time,
I’M LICHEN LITTLE PLANTS!
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