Contemplate invasive (?) orchids (we should have such weeds) or bryophytes-du-jour (such as this loverly liverwort), explore tasty wild edibles (with care!), tropical vines, or Great Basin conifers. You can even try your hand at making soup—but brush up on your Latin first to get the ingredients right...
First, there’s the startling array of shapes and colors. That trait they have in common with other fungi so maybe it’s not lichens’ most unusual feature (those are fungi, above, by the way). Still, for everything from barely perceptible crusts to wacky forms worthy of a sci-fi movie, lichens are hard to beat.
Lichens are tough. Studying them in the harsh environment of the Arizona desert, where they’re lucky to get a few minutes to photosynthesize using dew at dawn before they dry out for another day, one develops a certain respect for these crusty critters. Imagine the temperature on a dark volcanic rock at midday of an Arizona summer... you'd be crustose too.In an experiment led by Leopoldo Sancho from the Complutense University of Madrid, two species of lichen—Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans—were sealed in a capsule and launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket on 31 May 2005.
Once in Earth orbit, the lid of the container opened and the samples were exposed to the space environment for nearly 15 days before the lid resealed and the capsule returned to Earth.
The lichens were subjected to the vacuum of space and to temperatures ranging from—20°C on the night side of the Earth, to 20°C on the sunlit side.
Maybe the neatest thing about these incredible organisms is that they're not one organism at all, but a combination. The lichen symbiosis is not unique, but has happened many times, and with many different partners. Now that fungi, and therefore lichens, are no longer considered plants but their own entire kingdom as are algae, the lichen combination unites members of two extremely distinct groups of organisms. (Ever think it's tough to get along with mates of our own species?? Consider the lichen.) The photobiont consists of algal or cyanobacterial cells immersed in the hyphal strands of the mycobiont, or fungal partner. Here's a great orange lichen; note the green layer of algal cells in the lower right of the photo, where the thallus has been cut.
In some lichen species, the symbiosis gets really interesting. They may have a primary union with, say, Trebouxia, the most common green alga in lichens, but they also have a little cyanobacterial thing going on. Take this Peltigera for example. When wet, its bright green color tells us that most of the thallus contains green algal cells (Chlorophytes, eukaryotes). But see those darker bumps on the surface? Called cephalodia, those harbor cyanobacteria (Protists, kingdom Monera), adding a third kingdom to this particular symbiotic union.
This week, brown is the new white. Most of the evidence of the storms of early February has disappeared from the view, if not from the north-facing front yard. 
It's February. I explained that his chances of seeing a snake were somewhere between extremely slim and zilch, no matter how mild the day. We also talked about bears and mountain lions, neither of which I've seen in person in my 30 years here. We know they're here, we just don't see 'em. In fact, we've grown used to not seeing 'em. (Photo by H. Barrison via Wikipedia.)
In fact, I can navigate fairly well downtown, as long as I'm going somewhere I'm used to. But set me down in San Francisco or St. Louis, and I'm a fish out of water. Big cities make me nervous; if I went to New York City, I'd turn into a basket case utterly dependent on my guide. There would have to be a guide. (Photo adapted from Wikipedia.)
I did worry about the birds, most of whom flocked to the feeders. Food was no problem; they had plenty of that, but I was out of suet. I invented a substitute of sorts, that immediately attracted a little Downy Woodpecker, but she soon lost interest. Even the starlings didn't find it tempting. Finally, I fed it to the more appreciative chickens, once proper bird suet arrived. 
The latest edition of the Berry-Go-Round plant carnival is now posted at Seeds Aside. 
But the original reason I needed to re-engage was work-related: a project that gave me an excuse to learn more about the rare plants at Summit Lake Park, the alpine contribution to Denver's Mountain Park System. I need to know what these plants look like, and I won't be making any trips to Mt. Evans or Summit Lake in January (see photo). Could the new PlantList site help me? 
In two clicks, on my first attempt*, I found myself looking at an image of herbarium specimen #K000697587 of Draba exunguiculata at, incredibly, the Kew Herbarium! It was collected near Gray's Peak in 1885! I’m a bit daft about cryptogams, and it seemed everywhere we tried to put a flag, the “bare” ground was thick with lichens and mosses. Tundra lichens are a special breed—most are species that dominate arctic ecosystems and aren’t seen down here in the lower 48 states, except at very high altitudes. So they’re special, at least to me.
A few more clicks, and you'll have a map of all the georeferenced specimens in the database, or maybe a list of all the lichen specimens collected within a given distance of whatever coordinates you care to enter. If you ask for all the occurrences of the arctic lichens Dactylina madreporiformis (aka Allocetraria madreporiformis) and Thamnolia vermicularis, you get 515 specimens in ten (counting subspecies) taxa, that look, on the map, like this. The Dactylina is red; Thamnolia blue.
The armchair explorer can click each little map bubble to view a specimen label for that site. If multiple specimens occur there, a list of them pops up, and you can pick which label you want to see.
If you have a microscope handy, you can even try using a Dynamic Key to the lichens of an area, as in this one for the 348 lichen species within 40 miles of Summit Lake. The key will walk you through the characters, eliminating species at every choice (pick a feature you know, if possible, or can make an educated guess at), until you arrive at your answer. Unfortunately, the first big steps in elimination require you to know quite a bit about the lichen's innards, like spore features and what the photobiont (algal partner) is. If you happen to know it's cyanobacterioid, you're in luck; you'll only have to work through 36 species. Alas, about 90% of lichens involve green algae, often Trebouxia, as the primary photobiont.
So far, 2011 has shown promise, in its small moments and quiet observations. Just the way we like it here at FF... Dawn photo, on the 2nd, finds the Sun in its notch, already a bit to the north of its Winter Solstice position.
With temperatures plus-50F (above 10C) this past weekend (and a few minutes of actual rain, in January yet, yesterday morning), the entire foot (30 cm) of snow is now also gone. On January 6th, the calm between the storms is reflected in a pink morning. 
On a sad note, Bob the Quail has not shown his adorable little face, or that roundish shape lurking under his favorite shrub, since January 4th. I still hope for his return, but know as well that his visit was a special glimpse and not necessarily a long-term liaison. Cat Woman's friend and I will remember a special sighting of him on New Year's Day. 
On the domestic front, we've had some serious cold, during which the woodstove served cozily, and the Chocolate Cat discovered the cryptic qualities of the new blanket "Grandma" brought him for Christmas. 
Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
Rainbow in the morning, shepherd take warning.
Rainbow toward night, shepherd's delight.
Evening red and morning gray sets the traveler on his way.
Evening gray and morning red brings down rain upon his head.
Christmas, and the whole winter season in general, is brightened by a host of plants we traditionally associate with this time when we are, in the Northern Hemisphere temperate zone, largely plant-deprived. Lately it seems The Tree and the ubiquitous modern Poinsettia get most of the glory, but in times past many other plant species lent color and meaning to our festivities. As this song has been trickling through my head all week, I thought I'd explore a few of its historic associations, and give you a reason to keep your holiday greens up a little longer. 
In days of yore, when certain Europeans placed great emphasis on the symbolism associated with plants and animals, the year was divided into two parts: the waxing year, into which we pass on the Winter Solstice, is ruled by the Oak King; the waning half is ruled by the Holly King. (Photo from Wikimedia commons.)The Holly and the Ivy, now are both well grown;
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown.
Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a cold.
Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.
Ivy hath chapped fingers, she caught them from the cold,
So might they all have, aye, that with ivy hold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
H. helix can grow to choke out other plants and create "ivy deserts" in the United States. State and county sponsored efforts are encouraging the destruction of ivy in forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Southern United States. Its sale or import is banned in Oregon. Ivy can easily escape from cultivated gardens and invade nearby parks, forests and other natural areas. Ivy can climb into the canopy of trees in such density that the trees fall over from the weight, a problem which does not normally occur in its native range. In its mature form, dense ivy can destroy habitat for native wildlife and creates large sections of solid ivy where no other plants can develop. —from Wikipedia.org.
Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletow;
Instead of holly now upraise
The greener box for show.
The holly hitherto did sway,
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter day,
Or Easter's Eve appear.
Then youthful box which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Whitsuntide.*
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comly ornaments,
To readorn the house.
Thus times do shift;
Each thing his turn doth hold;
New things succeed,
As former things grow old.
"The Greener Box": Buxus sempervirens, in the unappetizing Euphorbiaceae, is an easy one, and grows in Europe, the Orient, and temperate Asia. Given its toxic nature, unlike the rest, we'd perhaps count on this green primarily for decoration.
"The Crisped Yew": Taxus baccata occurs in north temperate Europe and Asia; in North America, substitute Pacific Yew (Taxus brevifolia).
"Birch" would most likely be Betula alba , which grows in Europe, No. Asia, and No. America, or in No. America, perhaps also Sweet Birch, B. lenta.
For "green rushes," we could use Sweet flag, Acorus calamus, a plant of north temperate regions, as is the Bulrush, Scirpus lacustris, both widely used for strewing.
"Bent": Agrostis stolonifera, perhaps, or others of the more than one hundred species of this grass. Pasture grasses and sometimes weeds, these would have been part of the straw commonly used as floor covering.
Few of us have backyards that could sustain a year-round harvest of greens for strewing and freshening our houses; most likely, we also lack the time to harvest and redecorate seasonally. As the practice has faded, it seems our winter holiday decorations are the only remnant of a once wider traditional practice of bonding with plants. (At left: Burning The Christmas Greens, from Harper's Weekly, 1876.)On this day [Candlemas] the Christmas ceremonies, which had lingered on after Twelfth-day, finally closed, and all traces of them were removed. The custom long prevailed, and there must be many still living who can remember the evergreens with which our churches were decorated at Christmas, remaining until Candlemas [February 2nd]. from William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (1868)
Watcher's contributions to the blog world include the invention of the tangent and the nested tangent, without which his posts would be eversomuch more straightforward and possibly even dull. Some visitors flock to his site just for the tangents! And, of course, the allusions to Selma Hayek. 
Nor does the Watcher neglect illustration. If he fails (on the rare occasion it's been known to happen) to capture a photograph, he will create an Awesome Graphic, an art form he invented (along with the subcategories Expand-o-graphic and Action Graphic). Some complex concepts, of course, demand an Awesome Graphic and could not be otherwise illustrated. [This one is from his post on seeing the Mexican flag come to life.] 
Off Topic: The little sponges we are as children just soak up all kinds of stuff, and just thinking of writing this post brought back memories of the Watchbird. For those whose childhood was more deprived, here's a bit about the Watchbird:Maybe it was this early training that made part of me into a Watchbird. I dunno. In any case, it missed the mark. I was suppose to identify with someone in the cartoon, not the Watchbird. I guess even at that early age I was more prone to judging than being judged.
At any rate, the Watcher's posts quite often strike a chord. This last one especially brought back days of trucking around the Book Cliffs on (gulp) synfuels reconnaissance. (Ah, the last big boom; those were the days, eh?) I remember two special events. [Pic right, not mine.]
Watcher reports: "Once you get off the asphalt, Mancos is both wonderful and horrible. In dry conditions, graded dirt roads across the Mancos are often smooth and fast, allowing a passenger car to zip comfortably along at 40 or 50 MPH. But when wet, forget it." (Whence he goes on to explain, in true Watcher-style, about smectitic clays.) 
When I read page 47 of this cute little book, I knew I wanted to write first about weather and the Moon, especially because we broached the subject not long ago. I asked The Chemist for help again, and for a "slight fee," he provided this incredible image, taken Wednesday night between 5 and 6 p.m. local time. With the Moon less than 15% full, we have here a lovely waxing crescent. How did he do this, you ask? The Chemist reports: "I went up on Genesee Mountain last night with that in mind. Unfortunately, there were thin clouds covering the moon so I couldn't get the best pictures. I did take about 300 in 3 series and the attached is a stack of the best 67 images from one series. These were taken with my Pentax dslr and 400mm telephoto." The fee will be paid in pizza, I think.
"When you can hang your powder horn on the moon, do just that." So says the weather wisdom compiled by Eric Sloane in Folklore of American Weather (1963). This one is attributed to "famous Indians" who apparently hunted when the ground was wet from recent rains. They saw this Moon as a dipper, that could either hold or release water. I would guess that powder-horn-packing Indians are a fairly modern development, or perhaps this is an updated version of an ancient saying once applied to quivers or bows. 
In either case, this weather sign is not very reliable, says Eric, but the saying stuck with me because the idea of a Nonhunters Moon, especially following so close on the Hunters Moon of November, was appealing, giving the woodland creatures a little break from pursuit. The person of the 18th century, Sloane argued, was not a more intelligent, enlightened, or better person than his 21st century counterpart. He and she was more adept at being content in their pace, relative level of self and community reliance, and in their better understanding and acceptance of their locale within the stream - be it metaphysical or metaphorical - of time.—from Eric Sloane's Philosophy of Awareness
When I took this picture early yesterday, I noticed there's not much sun in the chicken yard at this time of day/year. John Denver fans, the girls just love 'sunshine on my shoulders,' and these two pullets* crowded close to the gate, where the first morning rays are found, to warm their feathers.* Pullet is to hen as heifer is to cow, or filly is to nag, as maiden is to mother, as virgin is to... well, you get the drift. These two are (or were) pullets, or spring chickens of this year.One or more of these new girls has started laying, so they're gradually reaching the status of "hen." Because all of the older hens have stopped for the season, we're out of fresh eggs, and we can't wait! Pullet eggs, by the way, are smaller than "regular" eggs: Apparently it takes a while for them to get the machinery working at full capacity.
"Notice, please, how sleek and lovely we are as we strut about the yard."
Even the older gals are looking pretty good now, but a few weeks ago (10/17), I caught poor Goldie here looking downright pathetic. She seemed embarrassed, kept trying to hide behind something, more camera-shy than usual. Her back was almost completely bare, and new quills stuck out all over. Believe it or not, this is normal.
Why chickens should decide to moult when it's already getting cold is beyond me. Seems like it would just make chilly times worse. Presumably, with winter coming, those new feathers will do a better job of insulating them than the old beat-up plumage would. Still, it's a slow process; they don't lose all the feathers at once, although piles of worn feathers drifting around the chicken yard can make you think so. Here's Goldie in progress (11/5), with her new body feathers about halfway regrown. 
Note also that Goldie's comb has faded to a pale pink, a sign that she's not in peak condition (partly her age); her resources are going into feathers, which are, after all, almost pure protein. That means no protein left over for those nutritious little bundles we enjoy for breakfast. (Here's a Barred Plymouth Rock in great shape, with bright comb, for comparison.)
As it turns out, moulting is triggered by the shorter day length of autumn. In Australia, the onset of moulting is in about March, vs. our September. However, off-season moults are reported by chicken folk fairly regularly, and partial moults can occur whenever chickens are stressed. The stress factor enables egg producers to time and synchronize moulting by applying mild stress to get the whole process over with all at once. (Goldie is looking fine now, though still pale and, I'm sure, not laying.)
The chickens are wary and camera-shy, but only to an extent. At least they're used to me, and to the arrival of fresh food on a fairly regular basis. This little guy, who has been hanging out with them quite a bit lately, has captured our hearts, but is a real challenge to capture with the camera. His penchant for hiding under shrubbery adds to the poor quality of these shots. Can you find him in the photo below? When the Handy Helper and I first saw him, back in late September I think, I thought he might be an immature chukar.
That proved wrong when the Darling Husband reached for the bird book the next time he showed up. Bobwhite Quail. A total surprise! Here he is perched in a honeysuckle bush (11/15), very unusual for him. 
Hadn't seen him in a few days, and began to worry. This morning (12/1), while I was carrying a teakettle of hot water out to the girls, he ran by. I, naturally, didn't have a camera at hand. It was the second time I've been close to him without fences, shrubs, and camera between. But I went back for the latter, and when I returned with food, there he was, sipping the newly warmed water! At last a clear, if not focused, shot, taken as one of the Ameraucanas looked on.
Update 12/5/10: Seems I've delayed this post just long enough! Yesterday the Husband captured this shot under a lilac bush—a new location in the backyard. Mr. Quail quickly returned to the chickens.
