Dr M says: It’s that time of year again! Last year’s University of Reading MSc Plant Diversity students (class of 2016 pictured above) are just about finishing their dissertations and we are already wishing them well as they get ready to move on to botanical pastures new, while the class of 2017 are soon to be on their way to Reading for a new exciting
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You know it by now, Dr M is particularly fond of lichens! And especially excited that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by
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Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists. In celebration of this union, Dr M has embarked on a series of music videos collectively entitled “a voyage round my lichen twigs” and all inspired by the diversity of lichens encountered
Learn more »
Dr M is particularly fond of lichens and especially delighted that the resident exhibition at Reading Science Week was the Symbiosis project which takes lichens as a metaphor for the creative symbiosis between artists and scientists.
The resident exhibition for Reading Science Week was the Imagining Science Symbiosis Project about which Dr M has posted before and within which Dr M is deeply embedded!
Dr M has been investigating lichen diversity with his MSc students and has recently posted on liking lichen growth forms, crustose lichens and foliose lichens. Dr M continues this series with a look at some of the fruticose lichens that students examined in the lab under the expert guidance of botanical colleague Fay Newbery. The thallus (the main body of the lichen) is branched the branches may be rounded or
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Dr M has been investigating lichen diversity with his MSc students and you can check out the other posts on liking lichen growth forms and crustose lichens and fruticose lichens. Here Dr M takes a look at some of the foliose lichens that students examined in the lab under the expert guidance of botanical colleague Fay Newbery.
Dr M has been investigating lichen diversity with his MSc students and you can check out the other posts on liking lichen growth forms and foliose lichens, and fruticose lichens. Here Dr M takes a look at some of the crustose lichens that students examined in the lab under the expert guidance of botanical colleague Fay Newbery.
Dr M’s recent lichen post drew a number of appreciative comments, there are plenty of lichen enthusiasts out there it seems, maybe lichenology is not such a threatened species as Dr surmised! Anyway while Dr M draws up his next magnum lichen post, here’s a stunning image of lichens from Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
“Lichens are not plants!” I hear you say! So what are lichens doing here on this botanical website?! Well, says Dr M, they are at least half plants! Lichens are a kind of symbiotic union between two very different groups of organisms (different Kingdoms even!) a fungus (Fungi Kingdom) and an algae (Plant Kingdom).