Walking along the pond lily trail, I came across lung lichen (Lobaria pulmonary) growing on the branches of the Pacific Ninebark shrub. Over the summer, the lung lichen was a brownish-green and felt like paper. With all of the recent moisture, some of it has turned bright green and has become soft and pliable. Some of it hasn’t changed from its summer color. I don’t know how long lung lichen lives, maybe it went through its life cycle. Or maybe it suffered from the dryness and poor air quality from the smoke of the late summer fires. It is sensitive to air pollution and won’t grow in places where the air quality is poor, such as in a city.
Lung lichen is an epiphyte, which means that it’s a plant that grows above the ground, supported nonparasitically by another plant or object, and derives its nutrients and water from the rain, air and other organic matter that gathers on or around it.
Lichens are amazing organisms, and I hope you read more about them. While reading about lichens, I came across this information:
”Representatives of a species called the map lichen (Rhizocarpus geographicum) have been aged in the arctic at 8,600 years, by far the oldest living organisms on the planet.”
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/lichens.htm
