I’ve been seeing a lot of interesting lichens lately and thought I might write about them, even though I really don’t know that much about identifying them. Maybe you’ll like just looking at them as I do, and won’t care if you know their identity. I do know that a type of lichen called rock tripe grows on rocks near water, so off I went to the nearest lake. As I slowly drove around the lake looking for likely spots where rock tripe would grow, I saw this.
This boulder is 6 or 7 feet tall, as long as a pickup truck, and probably weighs ten times as much. I was going to call it a glacial erratic, but apparently such stones are considered erratic only when they “differ from the size and type of rock native to the area in which they rest.” This one is granite just like most of the stones in the area, so it doesn’t fit the definition. Still, I imagine it has been sitting here since a glacier dropped it many thousands of years ago because it is too big to have been moved any other way. I decided to look it over.
It had rock tripe (Umbilicaria mammulata) on it all right-In fact half of it was covered with them. These Lichens are edible and there are accounts of people lost in the wilderness surviving by eating them. It is said that even George Washington’s starving troops ate them at Valley Forge, and Native American Cree people thickened their fish stew with them. It is wise to use care when eating lichens though, because some (Letharia) and (Vulpicida) were used to poison wolves in Europe.Another lichen, (Parmelia molliuscula) has been known to poison sheep and cattle.
I found that rock tripe lichens come in many colors. Colors vary within species due to light exposure, genetics, age, pigments present, and sometimes color even depends on whether the lichen is wet or dry.
Rock tripe wasn’t the only thing growing on the boulder. Here yellowish lichens are surrounded by mosses. When I see this picture I imagine looking down on a miniature landscape where mosses become trees. One way lichens can spread is by having the wind blow pieces of them around.
Sometimes it is like looking down on a miniature rain forest. I had a model train set years ago when I was a boy and dyed lichens were my shrubs and trees.
Laplanders harvest lichen to feed their reindeer, and in Libya they are fed to sheep. Bear sometimes feed on lichens just after they wake from their winter nap. Mountain goats, caribou, moose, deer, and squirrels also eat them.
The colors and variety of lichens is amazing. Some lichens can live for more than a thousand years and have been used to make dyes in yellow, brown, red, blue, purple, and other colors for over 3,500 years. Navajo rugs were woven with wool dyed with lichens and native plants. Lichens are also used to scent soaps and perfumes. Compounds found in lichens are also used in anti-viral and anti-bacterial medications, which might be why ancient Egyptians packed the body cavities of mummies with them.
This is not a paint smear, but lichens that grew on the boulder in the shade of the trees at its left end in the photo. I’ve heard of blue lichens, but these look purple to me. Or maybe pink? The ancient Romans used Roccella species from rocks around the Mediterranean to make purple dye for their togas. Later a longer lasting dye was made from snails. Purple has long been a symbol of royalty.
I Hope you enjoyed seeing a few of the lichens we have here in New Hampshire. Thanks for stopping by.
Wonderful lichen array. I’m doing a series on lichens that you may enjoy, too…
Yes, I’ve been reading it and have enjoyed it, as well as the rest of your blog. I’ll be a return visitor for sure. Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for sharing all of these details about lichens. I never thought about it, so this is all very informative.
You’re welcome. Lichens are interesting.
Very informative and enjoyable post! We have a species of Rocktripe here too, Umbilicaria vellea and it grows in abundance. I suspect there are several other types as well. They seem to favor the deep canyons with cliff walls.
That’s interesting. I looked up Umbilicaria vellea and each individual lichen looks bigger than what I saw here. As a group though, they look almost the same. The canyon walls they grow on must be shaded.
First of all, you’re lucky to have rocks like that around for the lichens to grow on! Lower Michigan, where I live, should be called the gravel state, as it is a moraine left from the glaciers.
Another excellent and very informative post! I can’t identify any lichens, even though I pause to look at them and the patterns they grow in often.
I never paid much attention to lichens until recently and discovered that they are beautiful, interesting, and almost everywhere you look. I’ve been reading about your state off and on and was surprised to find that Michigan doesn’t have any mountains.
There are what are called the Porcupine Mountains, but I thought that they were a pathetic excuse for mountains even back when I was a kid. I think that the highest “peak” is less than 2,000 feet.
Most of the state is hilly, large mounds of gravel on a limestone base, that’s what gives us the clear water and great trout fishing! We also have one of the longest coasts of any state other than Alaska, and ours is all freshwater coast, bordering the Great Lakes. I need to do a page about Michigan, it is a little different than any place I have been.
That’s what I remember reading-lots of hills and gravel. It sure is a beautiful place though. I think if I fell asleep and woke up in Michigan I wouldn’t know I had left New Hampshire.
So… THAT’s what rock tripe looks like. It’s pretty difficult to identify from drawings, so your photo really helps. I’ve been seeing it all along and wondering if that’s what it was.
They aren’t much to look at, are they? These look like others I’ve seen on line, but there are so many different ones that it gets confusing fast.