Littles: Loving, learning from tiny things.

LifeScapes December 2024

Parmotrema (ruffled lichen), Cladonia asahinae (pixie cup lichen)

Many littles make a mickle. Many mickles make a muckle.
—Scottish saying

They may be tiny, but they're visually stunning: a landscape in miniature, a minute garden, so small*¹ that they are usually beneath our notice. Which, given the destructive habits of our species, is probably a good thing.

But being tiny doesn't mean being unsuccessful. The lichens on the tree outside my window are among the oldest living things on Earth. They inhabit every continent on the planet, thrive in every climate, number nearly 20,000 known-and-named species. (And who knows how many as yet unnamed?) They form entire micro-ecosystems, where fungi, algae, and cyanobacteria interact with other organisms. They live in crevices, lurk in cracks and crannies, love dead branches, thrive on bony skeletons, flower on rocks in Antarctica and in the permafrost world of the Arctic.