Table of Contents

So what is a lichen, anyhow? Good question.

To most lichenologsts – the people who study lichens – lichens are essentially the outward face of an enduring partnership between two or more entirely unrelated organisms: a fungus on the one hand, and algae or cyanobacteria (or both) on the other.

At least that’s the way the story’s usually told; though as we take pains to describe in Ways of Enlichenment – the upcoming book this website was created to amplify – lichens can be thought about from several other perspectives as well. To name but a few: lichens are fungal greenhouses; lichens are algal farmsteads; lichens are ecosystems; lichens are organisms; lichens are emergent property.

The body of a lichen – what one sees in the field – is referred to by lichenologists as a thallus. The greater part of every lichen thallus is made up of fungi: Earth’s first weavers. Viewed close up, fungi resemble tiny white threads, though functionally they’re more like intestines turned inside out. (They grow by absorbing nutrients from their immediate environment). Fungal hyphae weave a kind of living internet within their host, be it soil, logs, dead fish, or the human scalp (ringworm). In some ecosystems – including the lichen thallus – they function as miniature straws, passing nutrients around not only within the fungus itself, but also from one member of the ecosystem to another.

A key feature of the lichen thallus, as of the internet itself, is that it operates without a centralized intelligence, a command centre, a headquarters, a head. Instead, lichens engage in what could be called network thinking which, when you think about it, is the original lateral thinking. And that’s precisely what we’d like this website to be, or at any rate to become: a place for lateral thinking. We envision a place where people with different backgrounds, perspectives and skillsets can work together – using lichens as a kind of model system – to develop a deepening understanding of the natural world and, thereby, of ourselves. Ways of enlichenment.

We invite you to enter this interactive website. You’ll find no boundaries here. Be welcome.