Alien Microcosm

Day 17: Out behind Longmire, a social trail leads along above the Nisqually River and below a spectacularly lichen-covered outcrop of rock. You would think that nothing would grow where the soil was so sparse, but both mosses and lichens have taken root in hairline fractures in the granodiorite until it is now like an enormous Chia Pet, hulking among the trees. I wanted to spend more time there during the summer, but with the weather so dry, the tendrils of lichen had such a parched appearance that they were unappealing in a photograph. Now that the rains have begun in earnest, they've plumped up nicely and are putting forth apothecia, brown fruiting bodies which will at some point disperse their spores.

There are at least four species of lichen in this tangle, Cladonia bellidiflora out of focus in the right background and a small specimen of bright green Frog Pelt (Peltigera) in the lower right the only ones I can identify with any degree of certainty. I have long since given up on trying to break it down any finer than a species name because many varieties require staining and/or microscopic analysis to separate. I am quite content to view them as the exquisite things they are, like transplants from some alien world.