NMoasis said: Josh, we have a fungi, lichen and moss forum that might interest you.
https://garden.org/forums/view...
This member has been conducting some fascinating experiments for several months and recently reported synthesizing new lichens. I don't pretend to fully understand it, but you might.
Thank you!
I don't know how much I understand (everybody everywhere is always wrong about something) but I know what I love and this is it!
I have ferns and moss and algae growing and aquatic plants and here I am just focused on cacti and morning glories and this lichen thread just caught my eye, because it is a super cool topic.
I love how a private researcher made a huge difference that changed the consensus of professional experts. That discovery led to better understandings of several other species that had been collected and studied for their peculiar uses, like with Dictyonema huaorani, first collected in the early 80s if I recall correctly. Known now to be a lichen that has a fungal partner that produces alkaloids, including some that were only previously known from psychedelics mushrooms. The lichen was said to be such a strong drug that it was feared more than it was used, and this is by tribes that regularly use psychedelic drugs in spiritual rites.
The enthnobotany of lichen alkaloids is even linked to major discoveries in chemistry about alkaloids themselves and relates to the development of antibiotics.
Lichen are simply amazing.
