botanyshitposts:

nectarinedragons:

botanyshitposts:

someone asks me what a lichen is. i explain that a lichen is a community of fungus that gets its energy by farming the algal cells it provides with shelter. “this is what one looks like” I say, putting my foot on a chair and rolling up my pant leg. there is a small blue lichen tattooed there. “there are lots of different types” I say, rolling up my pant leg further. there is a larger lichen there. it is not a tattoo. I roll up my pant leg further. there is a huge diversity of lichens living on my leg. my skin is bark. they have been growing there peacefully for centuries,

i roll to eat the lichen for protein

*rolls dice. it’s a 20*

u use ur newly obtained lichen expertise to identify a lush clump of Bryoria fremontii growing near my my knee! your luck is unprecedented; you also know that the First Nations peoples of Canada have long identified this species as a tasty winter treat! the species has absorbent tips that reabsorb nutrients washed off the top of the fluffy lichen by the heavy rains of the area; its this same mechanism that makes it great for absorbing flavors when cooked. following the usual recipe, you go about making the traditional staple Wila: you cook the lichen in a cooking pit with various berries and vegetables, then bake it into loaves of cake that can be stored and eaten later. you decide to eat one right away- 

*squints at paper* *rolls dice again* *its a 1* 

you bite into the Wila loaf you just made and realize that although you heeded advice from the First Nations peoples on cooking the lichen, you did not heed their advice on identifying the lichen. not an expert on traditional food yourself, you completely forgot about the key part of Bryoria fremontii- that the species is commonly found in two varieties in its native range, poisonous and non-poisonous. while the non-poisonous variety makes for a delicious traditional staple, the poisonous variety is the result of the individual lichen having a different yeast symbiont that helps to accumulate a large amount of Vulpinic acid, giving dangerous specimens a yellowish hue. this kind is also traditionally collected by the First Nations tribes and cooked, but is then added to an animal corpse and put out to poison wolves posing danger to the community- a use that has largely fallen out of practice in modern times. it’s from this that Bryoria fremontii earns it’s common name, The Wolf Lichen. u eat it and die, but for a few seconds its delicious.