Lichen On Seaside Stone Royalty-Free Stock Photography

Sea spray feeds the lichen and moss covering this rock by the shoreline in Maui. The carpet-like appearance of greens and amber of the lichen make for an attractive cover to this rock. Lichens are not plants. They are composite organisms & made up of two, or maybe three or four, completely different kinds of organisms. Every lichen species is part fungus. Usually the other species is a photosynthesizing alga, but sometimes it can be a photosynthesizing bacterium known as a cyanobacterium. Sometimes all three kinds of organisms are found in one lichen.