What is a Lichen?

The following photo may look like an underwater scene, but I found this amazing lichen growing on a fallen limb.Lichens can be quite beautiful. You may find them draping from trees and covering boulders. They often grow alongside moss. Despite their plant-like appearance, lichens do not have real roots, stems or leaves and have little in common with true members of the plant kingdom. 

A lichen is a complex life form that is a fusion of a fungus and an alga. The partners maintain a symbiotic relationship: the alga photosynthesizes and provides food for the fungus, and the fungus helps the alga to grow and spread in different environments.

Lichens get all of their water and nutrients from their surrounding environment via air and rain. They are able to absorb everything in the air around them, including pollutants. Scientists can determine the levels of pollutants in the atmosphere and assess their ecological impact by extracting heavy metals and other toxins from lichen. 

Lichens are usually composed of layers of algae and fungi. The color of the lichen is often determined by whether it contains green algae or blue-green algae, as well as the color of the fungus. However, the components of some lichen are all mixed together in one uniform layer. The resulting growth is gelatinous, and these are called jelly lichens. Lichens can look like colorful crusts, or they may be leafy, flat, or full of ridges and bumps. They may look like little shrubs, or they may be long and hairy.

Lichens are an important food source for wildlife. They also provide nesting materials for birds. Fortunately, lichens do not harm plants on which they grow, although they may indicate poor plant vigor. If they are considered unsightly, prune out offending branches and stimulate new growth by mulching, watering, and fertilizing. Control on tree trunks is not necessary.

For more information, read my previous post about lichens:  Amazing Lichens

Early Spring, 2015

It happens every year, but I greet the arrival of spring with the delight of an infant who has never seen a blossom before. The garden is awakening. I wander along damp mossy paths, smiling at each swelling flower bud and each lime-green leaf that unfurls. The light is gentle, the breeze is energizing, and the air is filled with chirps and chatters and trills and calls. There is a mockingbird in a tree, and his incessant happy song declares the wonders of season. 

Many limbs and branches are still bare, and on a rainy day the land looks as cheerless as any winter day; but not for long, as every morning adds new color to the landscape. Forsythia was late blooming this year, put off by freezes, but at last it opened its cheery yellow bells:

Chaenomeles, or flowering quince, bloomed through the hard freezes and continues to be beautiful:

Corylopsis spicata, called winterhazel, is a plant in the witch hazel family, or Hamamelidaceae. Its clusters of yellow flowers hang on bare branches and glow like little lanterns:Fothergilla is one of my favorite native shrubs. I recently planted several new ones near the base of some river birch trees. This variety is called 'Redneck Nation,' after Fred Nation, the botanist who found it growing in south Alabama. My new shrubs look sparse now, but they will soon grow and be filled with foliage. The fragrant, white bottlebrush blooms are just beginning to open:

My daffodils were a bit disappointing this year. They bloomed just in time to be hit by severe frost, then weeks of rain. They lay low to the ground during most of this time, but bravely stood tall when the sun was shining:

These trilliums grow wild in my woodland garden. The deep maroon petals in the center have not yet opened:

Hepatica nobilis, also called liverwort, is a beautiful woodland wildflower. I planted these next to a path, so I can appreciate its small, delicate blooms:

Another spring wildflower in my woodland garden is Sanguinaria, also called bloodroot. It has taken a long time to become established; the first couple of years I thought it had died! I am glad to see several blooms this year. It is shown on the upper right in this collage of spring bloomers:Clockwise from upper left: Sanguinaria, also called bloodroot; Grape Hyacinths; Pieris japonica, also called andromeda; Camellia 'Taylor's Perfection'; Leucojum aestivum, also called summer snowflake, although it blooms in spring; Magnolia 'Jane.'I am just as pleased with beautiful foliage as I am with flowers. Strawberry begonia and Heucerella 'Alabama Sunrise' are two new additions to my woodland garden: Strawberry begonia is a vigorous ground cover.

Heucerella 'Alabama Sunrise' is a cross between Heuchera and Tierella. Throughout the year, life continues in the decaying crevices of Stump World:

On a fallen log I find a surprisingly beautiful arrangement of lichens, which have flourished in abundant rain:

As day's end approaches, I find these blooms silhouetted against the sky:

The woods still look bare in evening's glow, but tomorrow more buds will open and more color will show. Spring is here!