What be ye?
What life form is this?
Upon a rock,
firmly attached,
around the clock.
For half the year,
scorched by sun.
For the other half,
drowned in flood.
Undeterred by heat,
undaunted by cold,
it makes its living,
silent yet bold.
There be not just one,
but many of its kind,
of every color
under the sky.
Friends it has,
around the globe,
from shore to shore,
from pole to pole.
They're atop the trees.
They're on the rocks.
They're on the soil.
Occasionally, they're even on moss.
What life form is this?
What can they be?
Such puzzling,
perplexing, mysterious things.
Why, they're lichens of course.
Not one thing but two.
Fungi with algae.
And they've won the world.
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/165921005
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/188150830
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150595832
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99535966
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/147911786
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/189033181
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193409195
