All hail to the lichens!

"Lichens of North America" may be the ultimate tour de force in botanical publishing, and comes with blurbs by Edward O. Wilson, Lynn Margulis and David Ehrenfeld. The lucky authors are Irwin M. Brodo, Sylvia Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff.

The book starts off with about 100 pages of general information on lichens, these bizarre double organisms which seem to grow pretty much everywhere in nature. The general chapters are sufficiently popularized to be useful and interesting to the general reader. The rest of this work is a super-encyclopaedia of lichen species found in the United States and Canada, featuring range maps and...wait for it...high quality photos, all in colour?! It has keys, too, and could therefore be used as a field guide. However, I doubt you could bring an 800-page book with you on a field excursion. Try the mini-van!

"Lichens of North America" is a kind of HBW of the lichen world (HBW = Handbook of the Birds of the World). What a shame the lichens themselves can't appreciate it! I admit I was fascinated by the sometimes quite bizarre specimens shown in this volume. And yes, I recognized the reindeer lichens. Some of them grow in Florida?!

Well, what more can I say. All hail to the lichens! Five stars!!!