lichen

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Lichen researchers descend on Roundup ranch for study

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The Milton Ranch north of Roundup was crawling with botanists on the cool, wet, third week in September, and Roger Rosentreter, retired state botanist for the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, was probably the most ebullient member of the team. When he arrived back at the ranch headquarters two hours past the usual afternoon gathering time, he said, “We’ve been out searching for manna lichens! Do you know what they are? They’re the kind that blow on the wind, and came in time to save the Israelites from starving in the desert during their exodus from Egypt!” (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Montana, News, BLM. Roger Rosentreter, Bruce McCune, lichen, Milton Ranch, Montana Native Plant Society, Montana Natural Heritage Program

Montanan transforms understanding of lichens

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The Atlantic had an article in July about a Montana man who may have overturned scientific understanding of how those incredibly tough and hardy lichens work. For 150 years, the article by Ed Yong says, scientists thought that lichens were composite organisms made up of a fungus in partnership with algae. Toby Spribille, who was home-schooled in a Montana trailer park and returned here after studying in Germany, found a third element: another sort of fungus that works in partnership with the other two. Spribille suspected that the additional fungus existed, but it took him five years to find it, going through some 45,000 lichen samples he collected over the years. “Many of the fundamentals of lichenology will need to be checked, and perhaps re-written,” Yong writes. He quotes John McCutcheon, with whom Spribille works at the University of Montana: “Toby took huge risks for many years. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, lichen, Toby Spribille, University of Montana