I love the beautiful Spring flowers in the desert but I also love the subtle yellow-green hues of the lichen on the rocks. It amazes me that this small, inconspicuous partnership can grow in such a hostile environment: on the side of a rock where temperatures reach almost 150 degrees in the summer. Here is a short explanation about lichen from Wikipedia:
A lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/ LEYE-ken or, sometimes in the UK, /ˈlɪtʃən/, LICH-en) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species[1] in a mutualistic relationship. Lichens have different properties from those of its component organisms. Lichens come in many colors, sizes, and forms and are sometimes plant-like, but lichens are not plants. Lichens may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose), flat leaf-like structures (foliose), flakes that lie on the surface like peeling paint (crustose), a powder-like appearance (leprose), or other growth forms.
I have often thought that I should have gotten a degree in Lichenology, a branch of mycology.
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