Algae and Lichen

In the post Animals, Mushrooms and Plants, I visited the phylogenetic tree of Eukaryotic organisms. Since I especially like algae and lichen (Algen und Flechten), I dug up some photos of those.

The first one shows lichen-covered stones on Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park in Maine.

Quite a different color is the red lichen at Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands. I didn't have my camera with me, but check out the link for a picture on Flickr.

On the beach (here at Point Reyes), algae are abundant. They look like big snakes, and are hollow.

Point Reyes is worth a visit any time of the year. A special treat is a hike to Tomales Point during the mating season of the Tule Elk. The best time of the day is early in the morning, when few hikers are on the trail, and the Elk are close by.

On the top of the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, the ornamental cherry trees are covered in lichen. they are exposed to a lot of wind, and the lichen hides on the eastern side of the tree trunk.

The next pictures shows trees at Alpine Meadows, a ski resort in the Lake Tahoe area. While I don't ski, I enjoyed snow-shoeing the area.

Additionally to the liken-ed trees, I saw a dead one, that looked like a spiral. The poor tree spiraled it's whole life in search of the light, until it smothered itself to death.