Lichens have three main growth forms: crustose, foliose and fruticose. Crustose lichens, as the name suggests, grow as tightly held crusts on various surfaces. Crustose lichens can have intricate patterns like the patchy green of this ‘map’ lichen, Rhizocarpon kerguelense, which is growing alongside two other species.
Foliose lichens, like this specimen of Xanthoparmelia scabrosa, have a ‘leafy’ form. The herbarium houses lichens collected on every continent, but this one was collected much closer to home – it was growing on a slate tile of the old Astronomer’s Residence in Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.
Fruticose, or ‘bushy’, lichens often have complex branching patterns with a delicate appearance that belies their hardiness. This specimen was collected in Te Whaiti near the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. It belongs to the genus Usnea, which are known as Beard Lichens.
Presbyterian Minister Francis Wilson (1832– 1903) was one of Australia’s first lichen specialists. The herbarium purchased 5,000 lichen specimens from his widow in 1906, but most were lost in transit en route to Italian botanist Giancomo Albo. About 500 of Wilson’s lichen specimens remain at the herbarium.
The herbarium houses over 3,000 Antarctic and subantarctic lichens. Many of them were collected by botanist and field naturalist Rex Filson, who investigated the lichens of MacRobertson Land on a 1962 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition.
Almost any surface – whether human-made or natural – can provide a habitat for lichen growth. They’re generally not fussy as long as they have enough clean air, water, light and nutrients. This as-yetunidentified lichen, collected by Rex Filson, was found growing on one of the more unusual lichen substrates in our collection – the iron of old penguin boilers at Macquarie Island.
Volunteers play an important role in curating our lichen collections. This striking fruticose lichen, collected from the Faroe Islands by Frederik Christian Raben (1769–1838), is just one of 6,000 lichens from the herbarium of Otto Wilhelm Sonder curated by Herbarium volunteers.
The herbarium holds over 1,000 lichen specimens collected by John Whinray, a contemporary naturalist. Whinray has been documenting the lichen flora of the Furneaux Group of islands north of Tasmania, providing rich insights into the islands’ ecology. This specimen of Xanthoria elixii was growing on the vertebrae of an unidentified animal.
The National Herbarium of Victoria was the first herbarium in Australia to employ a dedicated lichenologist – Rex Filson, in 1965. These days, Identifications Botanist, Val Stajsic, is our local lichen expert. This beautiful specimen of Cladiaretipora was collected by Val at Moonlight Flat in Central Victoria in 2001.