lichens
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Lichens
Always take a look at the sticks and limbs that come down from old trees. There’s a lot of stuff going on up there, out of sight, and breakages provide a great opportunity to see what. This piece of an oak has at least two nice lichens on it. Star Rosette Lichen (Physcia stellaris). Rosette…
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I’m Easy Lichen Sunday Morning…
When hunting lichens, it’s important to blend in. Stalking wild Lecanoromycetes is made all the easier by wearing appropriate camouflage. Lichens are slow, but they can see you coming. Glad to see the professionals agree! Back in December, my partner Molly and I discovered a very rare-for-the-city Usnea lichen. When another Usnea genus lichen was…
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Lichens
This is the first printed image of a lichen. 1542: Leonhart Fuchs’s De historia stirpium commentarii insignes… (and the title keeps going, as they were wont to). This copy is from the special collections department at the LuEster T. Mertz Library at the NYBG. This book and several others were on display during a recent…
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The Faces of Lichen
It wasn’t so long ago that I thought these memorials were just dirty, worn away with time and the elements, including acid rain. But I’ve been looking closer. At the lichens. Tireless, long- and slow-growing lichens, lovers of stone. Well, at least these species. Others favor wood. Some grow on both wood and stone. Some…
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Lichen
Lichens, like other lifeforms, are sensitive to air pollution. So the relative scrubbing of the air in the last few generations — before the Republican counter-revolution — has brought back lichen communities to NYC. Cemeteries are the one of best places to see lichens because they don’t have the road traffic of the streets and…
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Lichenworld II
More marvelous lichens from Nantucket.And amidst them, a tiny mushroom.
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Lichenworld I
Lichens are extremely sensitive to air pollution, so we don’t have all that many here in the city. We’re missing out on an amazing little universe as a result, one we’ve gotten used to not seeing. This is a perfect example of the way environmental destruction isn’t noticed: as species decline and disappear, we become…
Backyard and Beyond 