Liking the Lichens

I took myself out on a date recently, just me, myself, and I.

I try to do this about once a week, as some of you may know from my guest post at Quest for Balance, to fill my cup.

I grabbed my camera for this date, which I don’t do as much as I’d like. I headed off to a beautiful, pristine area of South San Francisco preserved by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in 1972. This is a hikers’ paradise (see photo at top)! The area I visited is situated in the high wooded peaks, inland from Half Moon Bay.

A view of Half Moon Bay from my  perspective (left).

Hiking in the woods (right).

I hiked until I was spent, stopping often to snap photos. I was alone in the wild, alone with my thoughts and my camera. Even though I was in an expansive forest, surrounded by scenes from the hilltops, grandfather-esque trees, and panoramic ocean views, I was continually drawn to the smallest of structures. I flipped my camera to its macro function so I could take close-up shots of these little pieces of heaven—small miracles.

An interesting thing happened later that night when I was ooohing and aaahing with my husband, Scott, over the paradise I had discovered. I started showing him the photos.

As I was flipping through the images downloaded to my Mac, Scott—a plant molecular biologist who specializes in algae—pointed out the obvious: over 75% of the photos I had taken were macro shots of lichens!

He was finally redeemed after I ribbed him for discovering his strange fascination with dinosaurs.

I love lichens! I admit it!

He promptly gave me gave me a refresher course in lichens. Lichens are composite symbions, which can be comprised of up to three kingdoms of organisms living together, most often algae with fungus. In a natural environment, lichens can not grow or reproduce with out the nutrient-providing partner of a photosynthetic organism, such as green algae. I find that beautiful. They can’t live without each other; awwww, just like my sweet plant molecular biologist husband and me (though, I can’t say who’s the fungus and who’s the algae—it’s a toss up).

I like how lichenologist Trevor Goward put it, “Lichens are fungi that have discovered agriculture.”

Recently I read about the adventure of Northern California tree botanists, who set out to discover and learn from the world’s largest trees, called The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston. I loved this book. It took me on a true adventure! I also appreciate that the author and biologists maintained secrecy about where the tallest, most pristine trees reside in an effort to help preserve them.

However, the surprise inside was the interesting in-depth discussion about, you guessed it, lichens! Preston says, “A piece of Lobaria [a lichen] the size of a child’s hand might take ten years to grow to that size. Lobaria is a comparatively fast grower. Some lichens can take twenty years to become the size of a dime.”

I swear I will continue to do my best to preserve these little feats of nature. Just as I’ve become accustomed to sparing the lives of our little insect friends, so, too, I promise to spare the lives our lichen buddies.

Long live lichens!

Check out these photos; aren’t they beautiful organisms?

Create a great day and thanks for stopping by!

[Photo at top of post by William K. Matthias, all others by yours truly.]