Findi Flooshki

Scaling Up

The term ‘squamulose’ refers to the scale-like lobes that appear on this type of lichen. The ‘scales’ advance from the outer edge and often die in the centre. The residue contributes to enabling higher plants to germinate and grow. 

En Route to Florence

Florence Broadhurst was a famous Australian designer and businesswoman who drew inspiration from nature to devise wallpaper designs and fabric. Lichen too has a global clientele in fabric dyeing industries and is on a zigzag path to recognition. 

Petro Dishes

Just as Petri dishes hold experimental bacterial colonies, rock surfaces host experimental colonies of lichen. Though tough, the natural environment proves much more successful than laboratories for cultivating lichen and nobody fully knows why. 

Blue Lacuna

Between the rust and ragged edges of earth are vivid pockets of conflict. Men pin their weapons to outposts and see out life. Lichens live on the outposts and usher in life.

Decent Exposure

Although fissures could at first afford lichen protection from mechanical forces, in the long term they could also invite deathly shadows from upper vegetation. Either way, time will tell whether lichen is better off at the top or at the bottom. 

Multi Culture

‘Crustose’, ‘foliose’ and ‘fruticose’ are some of the names applied to the crusty, leaflike and branching forms of lichen. In pockets, they can all express their individual natures and strengthen the bunch.