Wretched Bits of Being

In the great outdoors of the Roanoke Valley, have you noticed all those odd yellow, orange, or gray patches on alpine rocks or roadside trees?  Or perhaps the gray reindeer “moss” covering the ground atop some of our mountains?  These are lichens (pronounced “Like’ ins”).  British soldiers, pixie cups, oakmoss, toadskin, rockwool, angel’s hair, rock tripe, and old man’s beard are just a few of their intriguing common names.  A number of references are readily available to help identify lichens, especially a handsome 2001 publication entitled Lichens of North America by Irwin Brodo and his colleagues.

British poet and theologian Thomas Edward Brown called them “wretched bits of being.”  Lichens are unique in the world of vegetation because they’re not plants.  In fact, lichens are not a single entity, but a symbiotic association between a fungus and photosynthetic organisms like green algae or cyanobacteria.  Their evolutionary interrelationships are so successful that scientists have identified close to 14,000 “species” worldwide, of which about 3600 different types reside here in North America.  Lichens are found from the tropics to the poles, from coastlines to the peaks of mountains, and on every kind of surface imaginable including gravestones, monuments, the tops of leaves, and even insect wings – inexorably reducing the planet’s surfaces into their elemental components for later recycling.

Who can explain their bizarre symbiosis?  Though their components can be grown separately in the laboratory, they need each other to manifest their easily recognizable physical forms.  How they do this represents an important biological question that is relevant to scientific studies about cell transformation, including cancer research, thus making lichens a potentially significant research tool.

Globally, lichens have a rich and varied relationship with people.  Food, clothing, dyes, perfumes, medicines and poisons, models and decorations, and even an esoteric science called lichenometry (a method to date artifacts using established growth rates of lichens) represent some of their applications.  The most significant modern use of lichens, however, is the monitoring of environmental quality.  Varying from species to species, lichens are known to be extremely sensitive to air pollution.  Components of acid rain such as sulfuric and nitric acids as well as ozone, hydrocarbons, and metals affect lichens.  Thus, a “lichen desert” exists around a pollution source with pollution-tolerant species farther away and, still farther, a standard array of lichen biodiversity.  If you see lichens, then it’s a good bet that the air is pretty clean where you are.  Thus, they’re considered a good “indicator species” as we monitor environmental quality throughout our region.

In his 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac, the great land ethicist Aldo Leopold wrote famously: “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”  When working in the field of conservation, who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts?  Every sliver of Creation is important for the health of the planet: not just the so-called “sexy megafauna” like eagles and pandas, but also those diminutive, less glamorous species such as lichens.

What’s necessary at this point in our conservation efforts is what Field and Stream once called a “refined taste in natural objects.”  As Brown’s wretched bits of being, lichens can exact profound changes over time on their surroundings and, thus, deserve an inclusive refinement in our respect for the natural world.

H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D.
Science Department Chairman
[email protected]

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  1. Another great article~! I enjoyed reading about the lichens. We have many lichens around our home here so it is good news to hear that it’s a good bet that the air is pretty clean around our home. Plus, I have seen the deer eat the lichens at times. It seems to be a reliable food source for a lot of wildlife around here~!

  2. What amazes me is the fact that the American Indian lived off of so many things, they took care of mother earth, and what has happened to her since we stole it from them? It is true thier are so many different things out there, and to this day not enough people take the time to learn or care. Another great story Bruce, this one sad but true.

  3. How many times have we drove through the back mountain roads and commented on all the “moss’ growing on rocks and stopped at old cemeteries…..some were in patches and shapes and different colors without giving a thought why this happened..Who knows what plan God has for this so called “Moss”…Maybe a cure for Cancer…To me every plant has a reason to be here on our Earth…Just tiny pieces of the puzzle that must fit together for our continued well-being

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