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.

A striking orange script lichen from Colombia. The only guess I have on these orange ones is the genus Allographa, but I have no evidence yet to say with certainty.

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!).

I have never seen anything like this, a blood-red connected growth. Wow…

I started off with the strong colors, but many have black, white, or even grey lirellae (the script part).

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.

The funky multi-septate (the cell dividing lines) spore of a local lichen in Eastern Pennsylvania.

A black script lichen absolutely covering this log in Japan.

They come in white as well!

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!