Lichens have a slightly bit different growth habit. While Scott notes they are also found on 'rocks, trees, walls, and roof tops,' it's their structure that makes them unique.

Lichen grow on many kinds of surfaces including trees, soil and rocks. The kinds that land on trees have found a stable surface that has sufficient sunlight, moisture, and minerals to sustain them.

Where you'll find lichens. Lichens fall into four primary groups according to their body type. They grow on any undisturbed surface: bark, wood, moss, rock, soil, peat, glass, metal, plastic, and ...

Even though lichens and mosses do not have real roots, they affect the surfaces on which they grow by releasing a variety of organic acids that dissolve the underlying rock minerals, making it ...

Some cultures fermented lichens to make alcohol, finding that it took 20 pounds to make a few quarts, which would wipe out lichens in ever-widening areas. Since they are incredibly slow growing, man ...

When I was a kid, I learned that rocks became soil. After many years, that was my memory of the process and not much of the details. A while back, I was talking to a friend of mine that is a ...

Lichens on stone, those "still explosions" as the great American poet Elizabeth Bishop named them, remain unseen to most, which is remarkable when you consider how commonplace they are. It seems ...

Imagine printing your Martian home from dust, sunlight, and a bit of biology. A new synthetic lichen system uses fungi and ...

What the lichen growing on Oregon's trees can tell us about air quality. Clip: ... they have little branches and rocks in their pockets that they saved to look at at a later date.