No Place For Idleness

Day 363: The Pacific Northwest is no place for idleness. Hold still too long, and you'll colonize with lichens and moss. Here, an Usnea and a Parmelia have found a home on the Barberry (Berberis), a shrub not particularly recognized as ideal lichen habitat. In fact, the Parmelia has probably anchored itself in the thin film of dust/dirt adhering to the thin bark. The same species has attached itself to the vinyl siding on my house and the metal gate of the Berry Pen. It's one very determined lichen! Usneas tend to be a little more selective, but we have quite a wide variety of them here, and I have observed them on many of our native and non-native trees. A notable exception is cedar, but although cedar is relatively resistant to lichens, there are still a few which grow on it.