Lichen
21 lichen organisms and their business parallels
British Soldiers
Named for its bright red reproductive structures that resemble the red coats of British soldiers, this small lichen colonizes disturbed habitats - rot...
Desert Firedot Lichen
Desert firedot survives in some of Earth's harshest environments - the Atacama, Namib, and Sonoran deserts where rain may not fall for years. It achie...
Dog Lichen
Dog lichen forms large, leafy mats on soil and mossy rocks. Unlike most lichens that partner with green algae, Peltigera partners with cyanobacteria,...
Hammered Shield Lichen
Hammered shield lichen takes its name from its surface texture - a pattern of ridges that resembles hammered metalwork. This common lichen grows on ro...
Jewel Lichen
Jewel lichen creates brilliant orange-yellow crusts on limestone and concrete, thriving on calcium-rich substrates where few other organisms can estab...
Lace Lichen
California's state lichen reveals a truth about partnerships: they're rarely symmetric. The fungus cannot survive without the algae. The algae can sur...
Lichens
Lichens colonize the impossible: bare basalt on fresh lava flows, glacial till scraped clean by ice, granite faces where nothing else can root. They'r...
Lungwort
Lungwort's lobed, lung-shaped form led medieval herbalists to prescribe it for respiratory ailments (doctrine of signatures). While this logic was fla...
Map Lichen
Map lichen creates distinctive yellow-green patches with black borders on rocks, resembling maps or country boundaries. It grows so slowly and predict...
Oakmoss
Oakmoss is the lichen behind some of the world's most expensive perfumes. Its complex chemical bouquet provides the 'base notes' in Chanel No. 5 and h...
Old Man's Beard
Old Man's Beard hangs from tree branches in long, pale green streamers up to several meters long. It's a fruticose (shrubby) lichen that doesn't paras...
Pixie Cup Lichen
Pixie cup lichens form tiny goblet-shaped structures that collect rainwater and debris, creating microhabitats for even smaller organisms. The cup sha...
Powder-tipped Shadow Lichen
This small, grey lichen is one of the first to colonize urban substrates - walls, concrete, asphalt, gravestones. Its powdery lobe tips (soredia) brea...
Reindeer Lichen
Reindeer lichen dominates arctic and subarctic tundra, covering vast areas where few other organisms survive. Growing just 3-5mm per year, individual...
Rock Tripe
Rock tripe has saved lives. This large, leathery lichen growing on rock faces was eaten by stranded explorers and indigenous peoples across northern r...
Script Lichen
Script lichen creates patterns on smooth tree bark that resemble ancient writing or hieroglyphics. The 'letters' are lirellae - elongated reproductive...
Sunburst Lichen
In 2008, researchers mounted Xanthoria elegans on the exterior of the International Space Station's Columbus module. The lichen faced vacuum, cosmic r...
Toadskin Lichen
Toadskin lichen's blistered, pustular surface isn't disease - it's architecture. The bumps increase surface area for gas exchange and light capture wh...
Tree Lungwort
Tree lungwort's underside is covered in tiny pores called cyphellae that look like miniature craters. These aren't damage - they're gas exchange ports...
Waxpaper Lichen
Waxpaper lichen is one of the most pollution-tolerant lichens, persisting in urban environments where most other lichens disappear. Its tolerance come...
Witch's Hair
Witch's hair forms dense, hanging masses in old-growth conifer forests, sometimes so abundant that branches droop under its weight. It provides critic...