So what is a lichen, anyhow? Good question.
To most lichenologists – the people who study lichens – lichens are essentially the outward face of an enduring partnership between two or more unrelated organisms: a fungus on the one hand, and algae or cyanobacteria (or both) on the other.
At least that’s the way the story’s usually told; though as we take pains to describe in Ways of Enlichenment – the upcoming books this website was created to amplify – lichens can be thought about from several other perspectives as well. To name a few: lichens are fungal greenhouses; lichens are algal farmsteads; lichens are ecosystems; lichens are organisms; lichens are emergent property.
The body of a lichen is called a thallus. The greater part of most (but not all) lichen thalli consists of fungi: Earth’s first weavers. Viewed close up, fungi consist of hyphae: tiny white “threads” – inverted thread-like intestines might be a better description – that grow by absorbing nutrients from their immediate environment. The hyphae of unlichenized fungi weave a kind of living internet within their host, be it soil, logs, dead fish, or humans (e.g., ringworm). In some ecosystems fungal hyphae function as miniature straws, passing nutrients around not only within the fungus itself, but also from one species of tree, say, to another. Think of them as the “lines of communication” that hold certain ecosystem together, make it work.
A key feature of the lichen thallus, as of the internet, is that it operates without a centralized intelligence, a command centre, a headquarters, a head. Instead, lichens engage in what could be called network thinking which, when you think about it, is the original lateral thinking. And that’s precisely what we’d like this website to be, or at any rate to become: a place for lateral thinking. We envision a place where people with different backgrounds, perspectives and skill sets can work together – using lichens as a kind of model system – to develop a deepening understanding of the natural world and, thereby, of ourselves. Ways of enlichenment.
Admittedly these are still early days for our website. Even so, there’s already plenty here to occupy you awhile, maybe challenge some old ideas. Do be welcome.