Growth Form
Lichens are informally classified by growth form into:
- crustose (paint-like, flat), e.g., Caloplaca flavescens
- filamentous (hair-like), e.g., Ephebe lanata
- foliose (leafy), e.g., Hypogymnia physodes
- fruticose (branched), e.g., Cladonia evansii, C. subtenuis, and Usnea australis
- leprose (powdery), e.g., Lepraria incana
- squamulose (consisting of small scale-like structures, lacking a lower cortex), e.g., Normandina pulchella
- gelatinous lichens, in which the cyanobacteria produce a polysaccharide that absorbs and retains water.
Read more about this topic: Lichen
Famous quotes containing the words growth and/or form:
“Here commences what was called, twenty years ago, the best timber land in the State. This very spot was described as “covered with the greatest abundance of pine,” but now this appeared to me, comparatively, an uncommon tree there,—and yet you did not see where any more could have stood, amid the dense growth of cedar, fir, etc.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The cohort that made up the population boom is now grown up; many are in fact middle- aged. They are one reason for the enormous current interest in such topics as child rearing and families. The articulate and highly educated children of the baby boom form a huge, literate market for books on various issues in parenting and child rearing, and, as time goes on, adult development, divorce, midlife crisis, old age, and of course, death.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)