If arts and literature serve the purposes of perspective and beauty, balancing the challenging day-to-day of child and adolescent psychiatry, then nature too belongs in JCAPAP’s Arts & Literature and Nature (ALAN) column. In the last issue of the Journal, three movies were reviewed. Today a short photographic reflection on lichens on Lake Superior!
So, what are those patches all over those boulders? Minerals? Moss? Most often lichens. See the striking orange of Xanthoria elegans of Lake Superior rock faces in Plates 1 and 2, with Hare Bell in Plate 3
Plate 1.
Lichens including Xanthoria spp. on a Lake Superior rock face.
Plate 2.
Xanthoria elegans
Plate 3.
Hare bells and lichens on L. Superior cliff face.
Lichens’ fascinations include being a symbiosis and surviving in extreme conditions. Lichens consist of fungi in a symbiotic relationship with blue-green algae or cyanobacteria (Figure 1). Basically, it’s a trade, photosynthesis for structure, food for a home. Some fungi will no longer grow without their algal partner. But as lichens they survive −60 C in the winter and +60 C in the summer.
Figure 1.
Basic cross sectional anatomy foliose lichens. (Drawing E. Houlding)
Guiding framework for Arts & Literature and Nature (ALAN) submissions
Just a simple magnification reveals a whole new world, a diversity of structures (Figure 1, Plate 4). Spores are shed from cup like features called apothecia, although clumps of hyphae and algae called soredia also allow vegetative reproduction. Some “crustose” lichens stick to the rock face, but leafy or “foliose” lichens attach by structures called rhizines (Figure 1).
Plate 4.
Green (blue-green) algae are seen at the magnified surface of X. elegans. The orange pigment is protective of UV light. The cup like features are called apothecia.
There are a number of fun and easy-to-use regional lichen guides including “Lichens of the Northwoods” (Walewksi 2007) or “Common Lichens of Northeastern North America: A Field Guide” (McMullin & Anderson 2015). Find yours!
Have a book to review, a movie to review, your own nature metaphor for beauty or survival, submit to the ALAN committee via Vicki (vsimmons@shaw.ca)!