Gallery of Flora 2

Enjoying the plants of Halibut Point

(with Notes from Science appended)

Watershield on pond, blooming

Emergent mushroom, fruiting

Catbrier tendrils, reaching

Rockweed at low tide, frosted

Cinnamon fern, fall

Blue flag iris, shoreline



British soldiers, rooftop

Scarlet oak, reflected

Water lily, opening

Notes from Science

 
I received these edifying comments on last week's posting. I'm keeping with my visually-centered Floral Gallery intentions, supplemented with these insights to the natural order from orderly science.
 
From C. L.
·        Fungi, lichens and gall parasites are not Flora (i.e. Plants)
·    There is now broad consensus that there are (at least 5-6) Kingdoms of living organisms: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Protists and Monera (sometimes split in two). The cladistics folks conceive of many more Kingdoms (I won’t go there). Main point: Fungi are in their own Kingdom.
·    Lichens are a mutualistic combo of 3 organisms in 3 different Kingdoms!: (a fungus, an alga and/or cyanobacterium). The fungus provides the structure, the alga photosynthesizes nutrients, and I forget what the (recently discovered) bacteria do.
·    The lichen in your photo is a fruticose (vs foliose) species. Contra L. B. I don’t think it’s growing amidst a foliose lichen, but rather in its own “sod flakes.” There are a number of species of “pixie cup” species that occur here. I could probably nail the species if I had a specimen.
·     L. B. is right of course that lichens don’t bloom. However they do “fruit” (though not the way flowering plants do.)

From L. B.

Too long to go into…but not ‘mutualistic’ symbiotic.

It IS growing separately, as C. L. says, it is still NOT a flowering of the other species of lichen it is living amidst.

YES, they often ‘congregate.’

Don't you just ♥ lichen!!