Lichens

This morning I went for a run. I thought my friend would put miles behind him a whole lot faster than I would put them behind me, but we ended up being pretty even. I grabbed some lichen samples along the trails of the Rattlesnake Recreation Area, just North of my house so I could identify them when I got home.

Lichens are a symbiosis between an algae and a fungus. You could even say the algae and the fungus took a likin' to each other! The algae photosynthesizes and provides food that way for the both of them while the fungus provides the support and gathers nutrients in other ways.

Plants of the Rocky Mountains by Kershaw, MacKinnon and Pojar, says "Think of lichens as fungi that have discovered agriculture. Instead of invading or scavenging for a living, like moulds, mildews, mushrooms or other fungi, lichen fungi cultivate algae within themselves."

Along the trail I picked up a stick with two kinds of lichen growing on it, the leafy gray lichen appears to be Ragbag or Platismatia glauca. The other is Common witch's hair Alectoria sarmentosa. I didn't bring a sample home, but I did see that the bright green wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina) was there as well, perched on the twigs, not hanging down like the witch's hair. The wolf lichen is an interesting one, with a couple of different histories depending on who you ask. Plants of the Rocky Mountains says,

"Interior native peoples used wolf lichen to make a yellowish-green dye to colour fur, moccasins, feathers, wood and other articles. It was also used to make face and body paint. Letharia species contain the toxin vulpinic acid. In northern Europe, wolf lichen was formerly used to poison wolves. It was either mixed with ground glass and sprinkled over wolf bait, or it was mixed with animal fat and nails and left for the wolves to eat-apparently with fatal results."

Used pretty differently on the two continents. This isn't to say anything is right or wrong of course.

Bryoria fuscescens was present as well, but more prevalent up in the swan valley where the air is cleaner, the elevation higher and the circle of the seasons more lopsided towards winter than it is here. I don't know what makes this lichen grow there moreso than here. It appears to especially like inhabiting the dead, but still suspended limbs of spruces as well as the narrow Larch boughs. the yellow green larch needles are a beautiful contrast against Bryoria's dark sea green that hangs like a shadow, right there underneath the branches, the darkness of it too viscous to drip all the way to the ground. This lichen can get involved at times with yet another organism, Phacopsis huuskenenii which is another fungus that causes the Bryoria to have "black elbows." This second fungus is taking advantage of the algal photosynthate just like Bryoria is. Its kind of a weird love triangle I guess, or maybe it's more like two farmers sharing a field together.

I wonder if the addition of the second fungus harms the first or if they live together in a three way mutualism.