An Ode to Script Lichens
The hieroglyphic fungi you've never seen
As you may know, we recently came back from the Colombian Amazon where tropical fungi showed us the absolute upper limits of biodiversity. I should say it wasn’t just the fungi, but every living being was intrinsically fantastic and under documented. Today is a visual tour of a niche organism: Script Lichens.

What is a Script Lichen?
Lichens are fungi that work with algae and / or cyanobacteria to photosynthesize and they come in a wide variety of forms, from normal cap and gill mushrooms to tiny matchsticks living on top of other mushrooms. The most common forms have apothecia, fungal (usually circular) fruiting bodies on top of a foliose growth. Script lichens are lichens that have designed their fungal portions (lirellae) to look like elongated coffee beans on top of their crustose and tightly adhered main fruiting body. They come in all sorts of styles, and have amazing spores (if you can find one!).

Where do we find script lichen?
There are almost no species on rock. Instead pay attention to tree bark both living and dead. I even find them on palms in Florida. Once you find one, you will undoubtedly find more! Just remember that lichens take a long time to grow and removing them is damaging, unlike other fungi. While many of these photos are from the tropics, you can find script lichen worldwide! Anywhere where there isn’t too much pollution killing them off.
Anyways, this is a short one today. I took a bit of a break from the mushroom work, as it has been almost ten months of daily posting, studying, and teaching about fungi often adding up to 12+ hour days. I wanted to relax a bit :). We are starting up again, better than ever. I have something very special planned for this mushroom season, stay tuned!





Il'l have to keep my eyes open for them. I might have seen them before and assumed they were part of the bark structure