Liking Lichen

Headstone in Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff

“There’s a lot to like about lichens. Found in wild and urban places, from the arctic to the tropics, in deserts and on mountaintops, affixed to buildings and monuments, they are tenacious organisms unlike any other. Even on my quarter acre house-lot I come across lichens on tree trunks, the stone foundation of my home, brick walkways, fences, and the old cedar shake roof of my woodshed. Under our feet, out of sight, often fading to background, they can serve as reminders of remarkable and subtle natural forces all around us. They create mosaics of incidental and accidental beauty where least expected.   Combinations of funguses and green algae or cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), lichens are the essence of symbiotic cooperation. The fungus encloses the algae and supplies water, organics, and minerals from its surroundings, while the algae manufacture carbohydrates by photosynthesis. This self-reliant relationship withstands extreme temperature changes and can completely dry out without dying.   You needn’t know the names of various lichen species to appreciate them. Generally classified in three categories, they are crusty and two-dimensional, leaflike, or shrubby with lots of fine branching structures (like reindeer (moss) lichen). They grow incredibly slowly, up to half an inch a year and often much less. Though they get little respect for it, lichens are among the oldest living things on earth. Some are 5,000 or more years old”. David K Leff (2018)   The Lichen We (after Siegfried Sassoon’s “Man and Dog”)   Who’s this—alone with stone and sea?  t’s just the lowly Lichen We: the alga I, the fungus me; together, blooming quietly. What do we share–we two together? A brave indifference to the weather. A slow but steady growing pace. Resemblance to both mud and lace. As we now, so we shall be (if air clear and water free): the proud but lowly Lichen We, cemented for eternity.   Joyce Sidman