image transcript:
the lichen knowledge iceberg i have constructed on request.
jhanettesticle replies:
we cant make lichen happen in a lab? have we tried taking the parts that make up a lichen and throwing them together in a petri dish?
bogleech replies:
The deranged fucked up dark sided thing about lichen is that the exact species comprising it don’t even necessarily determine the type of lichen. You can have what seems to be the same lichen in two different locations using different symbiotes, or two different looking lichen turn out to have the very same symbiotes. So it’s not even that they form when the right component species meet up, because that doesn’t always have a predictable result. Something in the environment tells them to build a lichen. Something that makes sense to them but has no meaning to us yet. Whatever it is cannot be imitated by us, in fact if you move a lichen indoors - or move it at all, really - it’s all but guaranteed to stop being a lichen or just due, even if you try to recreate the climate you found it in!
Only one truth is certain:
Lichens are things.
end of transcript
reposted from tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/bogleech/756047802259341312
What the fuck is lichen
The short answer: fungus and algae work together and create a multi-organism structure.
The medium answer: [this meme]
The long answer: [years of graduate school]
It’s a thing that grows on trees and rocks mostly, but can and does grow on basically anything in the goldilocks conditions. They feel like crispy moss if you touch them.
They thrive in graveyards…
*off screen* Me too!
To those unfamiliar, this is the translation from goth to non-goth. Any non-goths hearing Robert Smith here make this statement would perceive someone closer to:
~me too~
Subscribe for more fun facts from “Too Sad to Sack Rome: Understanding Goths”
If
makes more sense to me than
Does that make me a goth?
I’m sorry but, I’m not a physician and thus am not qualified to provide medical advice.
Just need to build a lab in a graveyard then. Checkmate lichens!
What if it’s how our souls are released. Man I’m high and that thought still gives me the call of the void lol
I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty sure that this photo I took a while back has a lot of lichen:
That flakey & coral-looking stuff growing on the branches should be lichen.
It’s the opposite of not lichen.
And that’s both a pithy retort, as well as an accurate reflection of the ultimate gist of the infographic lol
A containment protocol for an ancient plague.