“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).
Dr M is particularly fond of mosses and was delighted to find on the British Bryological Society Facebook page a link to this Moss in Nature Competition from Digital Photography Review.
Dr M is developing a new botanical business concept – eXtreme bryology meets artistic floristry and the result is Bryo-Logical Floristry!
Autumn brings eXtreme botanical challenges of the bryophyte variety: mosses flourish and become especially luxuriant in the wet autumnal weather and it is an ideal time to renew and refresh our acquaintance with these marvellous little plants!
Dr M continues his occasional series of guest blog posts with a glimpse into the wonderful world of the bog mosses (Sphagnum species) by Charlie Campbell. As you read this, Charlie is travelling north to bog moss capital Sweden, to really indulge his passion through PhD research in Sphagnum ecology!
Dr M spent a long weekend in the English Lake District by Wastwater, the deepest lake on the Lake District and just down the road from Scafell Pike which reaches around 1000 m and is shown here hidden in cloud.
Dr M has previously posted here about “Imagining Science” a living Science-art collaboration. The next collaborative project for Reading Science Week 2014 is entitled “Symbiosis” and is about art-science relationships and uses lichens – the weird wonderful complex plant-fungus dual organisms – as a source of inspiration!
Dr M says its high time for another bryophyte blog post! And with all this recent rain the bryophyte flora has really perked up again for its peak autumn season. Mosses are of two main kinds: pleurocarps – branched and creeping for the most part, and acrocarps – unbranched and erect. One of the commonest acrocarps in the lowlands, growing on base rich and
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“Lichens? They are just wannabe plants!” as one of my past botany students put it – she didn’t like them very much! Well I suppose there is some truth in this. Lichens are a curious combination of an alga (a group of plants which includes the seaweeds) and a fungus (not a plant – in fact fungi (e.g.mushrooms and toadstools) are closer, in evolutionary
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