Lichens and observations

I have long had a fascination with lichens, not least because of the symbiotic nature of them, but also because of their ability to indicate the relative cleanliness of the air - many species are not very tolerant of air pollution.  I think those shown on this headstone must be more tolerant than others as I had a road a few metres behind me and a car park a few metres in front, with this old burial ground sandwiched between.  I am no expert when it comes to identification, for that check out a member of the British Lichen Society, or your local equivalent.  I suspect the yellow one here may be a species of Xanthoria, but I may post this picture (taken with my mobile phone) on iSpot to see whether I get an identification.  This may be hard as you often require specialist equipment and reagents to get a good ID, but you never know!  If I find out, I will post here.

Now have the result from iSpot!  I was wrong!  The yellow one may be Caloplaca sp and the grey one Physcia adscendens - thanks to the experts logging on to iSpot!

One of my great frustrations is not being able to identify everything I see, though I know that's totally unrealistic - I think my interests go way too wide!  I would, however, recommend anyone to use iSpot if you are able to photograph something of interest - my experience is that a reply with the ID is given very quickly, sometimes after what appears to be just a few minutes.

Natural Resources

The text of this post isn't going to be very long and I don't think this is very topical, but it appears to me that sometimes incentives are needed to take care of the Earth's resources.  Personally, I want the Earth to be in a good condition and to be taken care of for its own sake.  The topical connection is the possible threat of petrol shortages in the UK if drivers decide to strike.

Other resources we use are related to medicine and, though I am not heavily into alternative medicine, it has to be recognised that many therapies we use today were originally derived from the natural world - this includes cancer drugs and medicines that combat malaria.  Even aspirin was, of course, originally from a tree.  Occasionally, we may even find that people we may consider uneducated (by our standards) and lacking the technology we take for granted have been using a natural remedy for generations that appears to have some effectiveness against one ailment or another.  As part of my MSc ethnobotany was (and is) an area I looked into, though I fully accept there can be potential issues with levels of application.  It should also be remembered that herbal treatments are not automatically safe - deadly nightshade doesn't have that name by accident and, though not plants but fungi, the death cap and destroying angel are well named.

I just think we can learn a lot from others and we never know when we may need nature's pharmacy for the next wonder drug.