Up close and personal with lichens

HOW often have you passed a tree that seemed to be coated in white or pale green paint or saw some small leafy rosettes growing on bark?

Have you seen the tree with the green beard? What about the bright yellow bits clinging to the bare branches of the bushes on your walk?

In other words, did you ever get up close and personal with lichens? I have to admit that I hadn’t. Until now. My fascination with lichens began when I idly took some photographs of some crusty, leafy, stringy things growing on the apple trees in my garden in Cookley Green. Just for fun.

When I uploaded the images on to my computer and saw the lichens in detail, I was actually shocked by the incredible complexity of the things I had been looking at every day, but not really seeing.

This made me go on a daily lichen safari: an activity that is totally free and available to anyone who is interested. And this time of the year is perfect for lichen-spotting because the trees are still bare.

Lichens can be found everywhere in an incredible array of colours and shapes. They can be large or tiny, brightly coloured or dull.

Because lichens grow on many different substrates (the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached to), they are easy to find if you look for them. A graveyard is an excellent place to start, as is a stone patio. Look at rocks and walls, bark and branches.

You will soon find that lichens are ubiquitous. In fact, lichens cover up to eight per cent of the Earth’s surface.

A lichen is a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria living in a symbiotic or mutually beneficial partnership. The fungus element requires carbohydrates for food. The algae or cyanobacteria require shelter. Because the algae and cyanobacteria are photosynthetic, they provide food for the fungus in return for the shelter that it provides.

Lichens get their water and nutrients from the surrounding environment via air and rain. They do little or no harm to the substrate on which they are growing.

The abundance and diversity of lichens are an indication of good air quality because many species are sensitive to pollutants. Judging by the number of lichens I’m finding in our area, we must be enjoying clean air. Woods rich in lichens support more wildlife than woods without them.

Lichens are useful to other wildlife, offering nesting material for birds, mammals and insects, and food and shelter for lots of invertebrates, which in turn feed other creatures.

I have learned many new scientific terms that are used to describe lichens, but rather than list them here, I’ve used them where relevant to the various lichens featured. These terms are in italics with an explanation in parentheses.

I hope you enjoy looking at the lichens and reading about them, but more than that, I hope you will be inspired to actually go out and look for them yourself.

Lichen-spotting can be especially fun for children as the colours and shapes are so unusual and eye-catching.

I am not a lichen expert but have been studying them in books and on the internet. I also had considerable help from expert lichenologists who assisted me with sometimes difficult identifications.

Mike Simms, senior curator of natural sciences at National Musuems Northern Ireland, Martin Butler, Bedfordshire county recorder for lichens, and Ray Kimber have been a great source of knowledge.

For help in identifying lichens, try the British Lichen Society, or go to “lichen identification” on Facebook. However, one caveat: although I’ve tried my best, nothing is certain in the world of lichens or fungi unless a species has been positively identified using spores and microscopy, so please keep that in mind.

I am posting daily photos of the Chilterns on my Instagram account, so have a look and enjoy.

www.instagram.com/quiltmaniac1

You can contact me via my website, www.lindaseward.com