I'm an old guy, living near San Francisco. I was born in Austria and grew up in Shanghai. Long-distance running used to be my passion. Now it's digital photography and hiking. When people ask me what I like to take pictures of, my answer is "what I see". I follow world-events and am of a rather liberal stripe. To top it all off, I'm a vegetarian.I'm an extrovert and don't take life terribly seriously.
Lichen on a rock, yesterday, in Tennessee Valley. I love lichen, and there's a lot to love! Here's what I found on the web ~
Structurally, lichens are among the most bizarre of all forms of life. That's because every lichen species is actually composed of two, possibly even three, distinct species of organisms. One species is a kind of fungus. Usually the other species is an alga, but sometimes it can be a photosynthesizing bacterium known as a cyanobacterium. Sometimes all three organisms are found in one lichen.
The drawing above gives an idea of what fungal hyphae wrapping around alga cells might look like at the microscopic level. Since all three kinds of organism are profoundly different from one another, what lichens do is almost like merging a shrub with a dog to produce something that looks and lives unlike either shrub or dog!
Structurally, lichens are among the most bizarre of all forms of life. That's because every lichen species is actually composed of two, possibly even three, distinct species of organisms. One species is a kind of fungus. Usually the other species is an alga, but sometimes it can be a photosynthesizing bacterium known as a cyanobacterium. Sometimes all three organisms are found in one lichen. 
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