Today we are flying back to Australia, meaning I will be out of action for two days. Time for the first botany picture in weeks, a member of the lichen genus Graphis from the bark of a walnut tree in southern France. I don't know how to distinguish any species but the genus is easy to recognise here, and the best known species is Graphis scripta. Its name captures what the black fruiting bodies on the white thallus are reminiscent of: some kind of strange script. Because the connection between lichens and writing was too good to pass on, there is of course a lichenological scientific journal with that very name.
No comments:
Post a Comment