Lichens: "Barometer" of Air Quality

  Lichen: "Barometer" of Air Quality

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Living with Nature - School on Blog

Squamous lichen, an intermediate of crustose and foliose types. 

La Mesa Eco Park, QC

Lichens*

You are a landscape artist, you paint

      and mold life at its barest,

On weathered rocks and ancient trunks,

      or some forgotten crests,

And cliffs that would through seasons howl

      or sleep or cry like the eagle,

Or the chameleon that mimics sunrise

      and sunset in colors divine.

Bless you, pioneer of protolife,

      pathfinder of the moss and vine:

You who guide the lost in the darkness

      of the forest with compass,

Where towards the declining North side

      calmly lays your biomass;

Where rise the trees, roost the eagle

      and fireflies, the seasons endless.

Here you lie in peace under boughs

      once bare and lifeless. - avr

                   Sunshine on Raindrops by AV Rotor,  Megabooks 2000

* Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. About Lichens - USDA Forest Service