Spiral-Structured Lichen

    I'm fascinated by the shapes lichen makes on walls. I'd love to see a time-lapse film of it growing, but I think it might take decades to make.

    'Spiral-Structured Lichen' On Black

    Comments and faves

    1. - Ronski - (62 months ago | reply)

      Very interesting photo. A year's timelapse would be cool, find somewhere you go past at least one a week, make 4 marks on the wall around it & use photoshop to line up the images at the end of the year :)

    2. peterroopnarine (62 months ago | reply)

      Great suggestion. I'd love to see how this grows. I can't imagine why it would actually grow in a spiral fashion. but spirals do emerge from unexpected sources!

    3. ★

      me-jade added this photo to her favorites. (62 months ago)

    4. me-jade (62 months ago | reply)

      yeah i love lichen; such a strange hybrid thing - fungal and algal symbiosis. Your photo is beautiful.

    5. simply innocuous (62 months ago | reply)

      beautiful pic

    6. ★

      MadalenaPestana, jacek.poplawski, and OmMane added this photo to their favorites.

    7. ramblinrose8 (60 months ago | reply)

      This is like abstract art!
      Fascinating!

    8. ★

      ramblinrose8 and shantaya ~ dannie added this photo to their favorites.

    9. Sebastian- (58 months ago | reply)

      Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Science in pictures, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.

    10. puzzlecraft (54 months ago | reply)

      I've been taking pictures of a patch of lichen once a year since March 2003 (missed one year), so you can get some idea how it grows, see www.custompuzzlecraft.com/Lichen/lichen_20030 416.html - a bit hard to get the same orientation each year. Look at each "frame" then use you browser's back or forward button to get some idea of the change.

    11. David Cartier (51 months ago | reply)

      Beautiful ... These things are amazing !! I hear they can live for thousands of years !!!

    12. ★

      SZSRocks, avaDarlene, ELINtm, ArtMind etcetera, and sun rising 06 added this photo to their favorites.

    13. ottofish (22 months ago | reply)

      Would you be willing to let us use this photo in an academic paper on lichen growth patterns? We would of course include photo credits and acknowledgements. I can be contacted at ottofish45@yahoo.com

      Thanks very much, Nice work BTW!

      TJ

    14. 0olong (22 months ago | reply)

      Thanks! As long as you send me a copy of the paper that'd be fine - I'm fascinated by what determines how they turn out...

    15. ★

      simply innocuous added this photo to their favorites. (22 months ago)

    16. simply innocuous (22 months ago | reply)

      It's striking how much the patterning resembles cell substrate contacts when they spread on glass coverslips in one of the cell types I used to work with.

    17. ottofish (22 months ago | reply)


      Thanks for the permission. I will send you a copy of the manuscript...but it will be a while as the semester is getting ready to start. As mentioned in the post just above, we hypothesize that the growth follows similar 'rules' to that of many other slow growing organisms, leading to some intereesting ecological consequences.
      Cheers,

      TJ

    18. ★

      yummyume1 and TheOakLeaves added this photo to their favorites.

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