Book ID: 82348
Malcolm, Bill and Nacy Malcolm
New Zealand Lichens. Rev.ed. 2018. ca. 700 illus. 307 p. Paper bd.
Fungi can't make their own food. They survive only because they've evolved ways of getting food from other creatures. Some of them take on algal and bacterial partners that can make food by trapping on rock, soil, and bark where you'd expect to find them, but almost everywhere else, too-on glass, plastic, roof tiles, ironmongery, sealed roads, and even abandoned cars. This book explains how a lichen's partners interact, shows what lichens look like on the outside and how they're built on the inside, and recounts the bizarre uses that they've been put to over the centuries. Illustrated with more than 700 photographs, drawings, and microscope views.