365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Graphis Scripta, Script Lichen
Day 36: It's always a thrill for me when I find Graphis scripta in a new location, mainly because it's darned hard to spot unless you have your nose pressed right up against the host tree. Many lichens have a thin white thallus, as you'd discover if you began looking closely at the bark of Alnus rubra, Red Alder. It's called "red" for a reason, although in the Pacific Northwest, the true colour is generally so thickly colonized by those assorted lichens that alder bark gives the overall impression of being grey. That said, G. scripta seems to be less common than other lichens, so I've made a personal project out of finding it. At least locally, it tends to be restricted to the lower portions of tree trunks, only occurring above 3' in height in rare circumstances. The black "scribbles" which characterize the lichen are called "lirellae," i.e., fruiting bodies (apothecia) which, if viewed closely, exhibit a groove down the center of the length. Some subtlety in its appearance caused me to step off the trail for a closer look at one young alder yesterday, and sure enough, G. scripta's Ogham characters had been written in a shaky hand a foot above ground level, untranslatable, elegant and almost too small to see.
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