Lichens are amongst the most commonplace, yet bizarre, creatures you are likely to come across.
The patchworks of colour you see on many weathered rocks and churchyard headstones; the ‘fluffy’ or ‘stringy’ growths adorning many tree trunks and branches; and the swathes of ‘reindeer moss’ spreading across bogs and sand dunes; all are various types of lichen.
Lichens are a uniquely successful partnership between two or three different organisms (a fungus in partnership with an alga and/or a cyanobacterium - blue/green alga). This partnership has allowed them to colonise habitats too hostile for almost any other organism.
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