Where do lichens grow?

Nature is rich and extremely diverse, as can be seen by visiting various corners of our vast country or ordering tours to other states. It is interesting to look at a special group of plants, which differs from those plants that we used to see daily - lichens. This is at the same time a widespread species, and at the same time, its representatives can not be called ubiquitous. So, let's figure out where the lichens grow.

Where does the lichen grow?

Lichens are called a group of living organisms, which are an association of fungi with algae that live as a single organism. In nature, there are at least 26 thousand of their species, among which the following are distinguished:

Lichens can be found everywhere in wild conditions - they grow on every continent, not excluding Antarctica. Surprisingly, even in the barren lands of the Arctic expanses, this unique species is found. This is the place where black lichen grows. There are low temperatures, almost no water, but such a dark color helps the body absorb the solar radiation released in low quantities. Well, the black lichen takes water from the snow that melted in the sun. For a long time, lichens remained a mystery to scientists. In truth, until now in the scientific world there is no single point of view that there is a lichen - a representative of the kingdom of mushrooms or the kingdom of plants.

The growth zone, where bushy lichens grow, is, first of all, bare rocks, trees and soil. Moreover, lichen feels fine in the harsh conditions of the North, in the taiga, high mountains, and in the hot territories of tropical countries. Being a culture unpretentious, the lichen settles high in the mountains and on poor lands. In this case, lichens, eventually destroying the upper layer of rocky soil, with the death of the humus layer on which later develop other plants. By the way, lichens grow extremely slowly, for example, the growth of a yagel is only 2-3 mm per year.

In this case, the area of ​​lichens can not be called with certainty large populated areas, especially with developed industry. The reasons why lichens do not grow in cities are understandable. The air in cities is polluted, that lichen is an unacceptable condition. The fact is, for most representatives of lichens important conditions for high oxygen content in the air. But this does not mean that the urban zone does not find lichens at all. They do not grow in industrial zones, and on the outskirts one can find tree trunks covered with thallers of this biological species.

What lichens grow in Russia?

A vast variety of lichens grow on the vast territory of the Russian Federation. In the spruce forests, it is possible to detect the gray coverlets of the lichen-bearded man descending into the branch. When visiting a pine forest, it is not uncommon to find whole colonies in the form of crisp under the feet of patterned bedspreads The land is made up of white, gray and even pink bushy lichens. We mentioned another species of bushy lichens before - it is a jag, more commonly known as "reindeer moss". In the harsh conditions of the tundra, the reindeer that live there feed on this algal mushroom.

Sometimes on stones in almost any region of the country you can find a frozen gray-brown foam. It is formed by so-called scale lichens.

In nature, also there are leaf lichens (for example, xanthra wall), forming a bizarre multicolored pattern of plates. They cover not only stones, but also tree trunks, branches.