I Lichen the Metaphor

It wasn’t until a few years ago, when on a hut to hut cross country ski trip in Maine that I learned the make up of lichen and its complexity. I was with my friends Mary Beth Durkin, Meg Moran and Tom Durkin. Tom is a self taught naturalist and keen observer of the world around him. He was our personal guide and wrangler. Tom would point out wildlife footprints, tell us about the importance of the subnivian layer and take us on an owl prowl. This trip was magical for me! I love winter, I love being in the woods and I love absorbing knowledge about the natural world that so quietly and intelligently does its thing without notice or need for recognition. Lichen is not an attention seeker, but it does deserves attention! I have been observing it, without thought since my childhood, but never really KNEW lichen. Since that trip and learning of its complex and interelationship with its habitat I see it everywhere. I acknowledge its presence with reverence and wonder. I marvel at its adaptability, its contribution to its ecosystem, its intelligence. On the surface, it appears to be lifeless, but in reality it is clinging for dear life to a rock or a tree to sustain its co-dependent relationship with its partner. Lichen is a result of a symbiotic “ride share” between fungus and cyanobacteria or algae. They are neither plants or animals. They are a composite organism where fungus provides the structure and the alga/cyanobacteria produces food. They survive in harsh environments where other organisms cannot and play an important role in ecosystems acting as scrubbers and food/habitat for wildlife.

Maria Popova, author and creator of the publication, The Marginalian wrote a great piece about lichen titled: How to Be a Lichen: Adaptive Strategies for the Vulnerabilities of Being Human from Nature’s Tiny Titans of Tenacity. To follow are some important lessons from lichen extracted from Marias homage to lichen:

1. Contain multitudes without inner conflict. Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter undertook her little-known scientific studies and made the revolutionary discovery that lichens are part algae and part fungus, with a sprinkling a bacteria — three kingdoms of life in a single organism, not warring for dominance but working together to make it one of the most resilient life-forms in nature and a keystone of many ecosystems. They are what that the German microbiologist and botanist Heinrich Anton de Bary was studying when he coined the word symbiosis, which is the technology evolution invented for unselfing.

2. Roots are overrated — invent other structures of belonging. Lichens don’t have a root system to draw nutrients and moisture from the ground. Instead, they alchemize sunlight into sugar, using their plant part to photosynthesize and their fungal part to grow root-like rhizines that allow them to attach to nearly any surface — house walls and tree bark, dead bones and living barnacles — drawing moisture and nutrients from the air. This allows them to thrive across an astonishing range of environments — from tide pools to mountaintops, from the hottest deserts to the iciest tundra.

3. Cultivate healthy attachment that doesn’t syphon the energy of the other. Contrary to the common misconception, lichens do not parasitize the organisms on which they grow but only use them as a substrate and often contribute to the overall health of the ecosystem.

4. Become a pioneer of possibility amid the ruins of before. Lichens are often the first organisms to grow on the denuded rock left in the wake of landslides and earthquakes. They are the life that goes on living over the tombstones of the dead.

5. When you can’t change your situation, change your attitude. When environmental conditions harshen, lichens can shut down their metabolism for months, years, even decades. They survive in radioactive environments by entering a dormant state and releasing protective chemicals that block radiation and neutralize free radicals. They survive simulations of Martian conditions and even the black severity of outer space: When a team of Spanish scientists sent two species of lichen (the common map lichen Rhizocarpon geographicum and the bright orange wonder Rusavskia ) aboard a Russian spacecraft to be exposed to cosmic radiation for 15 days, the lichens returned to Earth unperturbed and resumed their reproductive cycles.

6. Leave the world better than you found it. Lichens enrich the soil of deserts, stabilize sand dunes, and create loam from stone across the long arc of their lives. They are part of how mountains become golden sand.

7. Have great patience with the arc of your life. Some of the oldest living things on Earth, lichens grow at the unhurried pace of less than a millimeter per year. The continent I now live on and the continent on which I was born are drifting apart more than 250 times as fast.

After reading this piece I developed more reverence for lichen. I recognize its diversity, wisdom, its lessons in tenacity and quiet intelligence. It is a strange and confusing moment in time. Lichen calls me to slow down when I cross its path. It invites me to take note of the small and mighty force of its wisdom and adaptability. It is a reminder of how we could be smarter, kinder and more cooperative as we relate to each other in a more positive and supportive spirit!

The photographs were provided by Jim Brighton who is a co-founder of The Maryland Biodiversity Project. Please visit the website to discover not only the species of lichen that they have cataloged in the state of Maryland, but the myriad of other species that grace our ecosystem with their presence.

photos by Jim Brighton https://jimbrighton.substack.com/