More lichen poetry and a bit of science
It’s hard to stop at just one poem. Now I’m looking for quotes about lichens, and more poetry too. So here is another lichen poem, by a trained biologist. This one goes deep into Lichen’s personal life. You might enjoy having a glossary of lichen terms nearby to get the most out of her verse, but even without that, I hope you are amused. She gives a fairly good synopsis of lichen life. Memorize the poem (why not?) and amaze your friends.
Lichen Poem by Caryl Sue (National Geographic/BioBlitz)
Their love can be a bit crustose
with areoles in bloom;
Their love can produce thread-like string,
called hyphae, when they plume.
Their love has colonized the Earth
from deserts to the ice;
These extremophiles exist
on sand, on trees, on gneiss.
Who could these star-crossed lovers be?
Why are they symbiotes?
They reproduce asexually
unlike us mammal folk.
A fungus, a mycobiont,
is one part of the pair-
It often lives all on its own:
itself, dead things, and air.
The other love, photobiont
can turn light into food;
The trick is photosynthesis
a skill that’s pretty shrewd.
Photobionts can be algae,
sometimes cyanobac;
Some lucky fungi can have both
at once, and that’s a fact.
A pair now caught between two worlds
not fungi, not algae
A composite organism
of one, or two, or three.
United now, this smart couple
sets out to reproduce;
Small spores or fragments of themselves
are set on winds, diffuse.
Some reproduce by using spores,
sped off to parts unknown.
These fungi that do not find mates
are doomed to die alone.
Soredia, isidia
are reproductive packs
In orange, or green, or yellow hues,
or purple, white, or black.
O foliose! O fruticose!
O squamulose, and more!
The fungi and the algae have
so many types in store.
Animals use them for their nests—
hummingbirds and turkey;
They’re almost all that reindeer eat
in the winter, murky.
People eat them as “famine food”,
They’re not a tasty treat.
They’re used in herbal remedies-
in dyes, and perfumes sweet.
So, once upon a time ago,
fungi, algae convince—
They fell in love, and they have been
lichen it ever since.
KVR Lichens 
December 27, 2018 at 8:50 pm
Lovely! Thanks.
Sent from my iPad
>
LikeLike