Natural History Wanderings

On July 15, 2015, Governor Brown signed into law AB 1528, a bill designating lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii) as the State Lichen of California!  The law will take effect on January 1, 2016. California is the first state to have a state lichen.

CALS would like to thank everyone who worked on this campaign including CALS organizers, members of the lichenological community who wrote letters of support, and Assemblymember Marc Levine who sponsored the bill.  CALS is working hard to use this opportunity to further its mission: to promote the appreciation, conservation, and study of California lichens.

Lace lichen is an ideal lichen for the state lichen of California because:

• It is easy to recognize even by those not very well acquainted with lichens,
• It is common throughout much of California and grows from the northern to the southern borders of the state and as far as 130 miles inland from the coast, and
• It is a strikingly beautiful lichen.

CALS sees this as an important step in increasing public awareness of the significant roles that lichens play in our natural environment. Lichens are excellent examples of symbiosis, in which two organisms are dependent on each other. The fungus portion of the lichen provides the structure that houses the algal cells and absorbs nutrients. The algae provide the sugars for the fungus through photosynthesis.

Lichens are resilient and have adapted to occur in the extreme environments of deserts, mountaintops, and both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Lichens also live in areas of moderate climate such as the tropic and temperate rainforests where nutrients and moisture are seldom lacking. Because of such adaptability and because of the diversity of California’s environments, lichens are well represented here with at least 1,900 species that comprise more than a third of the lichen species of the entire United States.

Lichens are important for both wildlife and people. A variety of animals rely on lichens as a food source including deer, caribou, flying squirrels, snails, and insects. People cannot digest lichens unless they are cooked, but they have provided food for native cultures, including Native Americans, especially during hard times. Many lichens have antibacterial properties and have been used medicinally for thousands of years. Lichens have also been used for making dyes, litmus paper, and the fixative agent in perfumes. Additionally, lichens are well known for their sensitivity to environmental stressors and are actively being used as biological indicators of air quality and climate change around the world, including here, in California.

Until fairly recently, lichens remained the purview of a handful of botanists. Toward the end of the 20th century, interested amateurs, who recognized their importance, began to study them. Amateur interest accelerated upon the publication of Dr. Irwin Brodo’s Lichens of North America (2001) with its wonderful photographs by Stephen Sharnoff and Sylvia Duran Sharnoff. Designating a State Lichen will call attention to this interesting, valuable, and often unrecognized part of the natural world that is so well represented in California.

See photo of the new state lichen at  California Lichen Society