What are these strange patterns and crazy colours that we see on trees, fenceposts and rocks? They look like splodges of gold and silver paint. They are lichens! You don’t often see how amazing and weird the forms and patterns of the lichens are unless you look closely. Club Wild found out on a lichen safari.
We found out that lichens are made up of two or more organisms living together, a fungus and an alga. The fungus provides the body and the algal partner provides the food from carbon dioxide and water with the aid of sunlight. This close interdependent relationship is referred to as a symbiosis.
We learned that there are crusty lichens which look like they are pressed onto the bark or rocks; leafy lichens which have leaf like lobes and bushy lichens which attach to the bark at the base of the lichen. We found types of all three in the woodland around the school.
We learned that lichens are highly sensitive to air quality and have been used to detect sources of pollution. In the past, when the air was highly polluted by sulpher dioxide, few lichens could survive. It was good to draw some of the weird shapes that they make.
On the way back to school there is a puddle full of frogspawn. We could see tadpoles hatching right in front of us. Spring is definitely here!
