Day 50: A friend maintains that I notice tiny things because I'm "built closer to the ground." He may have a point, although I'm inclined to think that although I grew taller, I never grew UP. I remember as a child being completely enraptured by a universe of little tree-like structures (the haircap moss shown above), but I do not recall lichens among my childhood discoveries. I can't imagine that they weren't present in the woods behind our house, but likewise, I'm sure my attention would have been drawn to them if they were there. Something like the "fingernails" of Peltigera membranacea wouldn't have been an item I could have overlooked, nor the pale blue-green forked branches of Cladonia squamosa. Unless I was sick, there wasn't a day I didn't have my nose to the forest floor in observation of some life-form. Yet somehow, I missed lichens. My life might have taken a different path if I had been introduced to them earlier. Oh, if only we could start over!
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