Plants & Nature
Map lichen
Map lichen is a green-to-yellowish-green crustose lichen with a black margin that grows on rock, often in the mountains, where there is little air pollution. It can live for several hundred years…
Tags: Lichen Description: Map lichen is a green-to-yellowish-green crustose lichen with a black margin that grows on rock, often in the mountains, where there is little air pollution. It can live for several hundred years. Even though it grows only 2 mm a year, it can form large patches that can look a little like a map. Use: Map lichen has been used to develop a dating method for rock. Since it grows steadily at about 2 mm each year, you can tell from its size how old the lichen is, and thus how long the rock has been free of soil. Habitat type: Mountains Edible: No Written by: Lærke Stewart
, via Wikimedia Commons](Kartlav/Kartlav_makro.jpeg)
Map lichen. Photo: Muriel Bendel, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons