Far life

Lichens and algae could be the first life forms we find on Earth-like exoplanets, by looking for their light signatures in a planet's distinctive colouring.

-- original article, report

Lichen: bacteria, algae, fungi

In the fourth century BC, Zhuanzi wrote of an old man tossed in the tumult at the base of a tall waterfall. Terrified onlookers rushed to his aid, but the man emerged unharmed and calm. When asked how he could survive this ordeal he replied, "acquiescence...I accommodate myself to the water, not the water to me." Lichens found this wisdom four hundred million years before the Taoists. The true masters of victory through submission in Zhuangzi's allegory were the lichens clinging to the rock walls around the waterfall.

-- from The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell.

Lichen on rowan tree in Llyfnant valley

P.S. David Barash has a Buddhist take on ecology here.

Stereocaulon volcani

This lichen is invariably one of the first species to arrive and grow on fresh lava. Species in the genus Stereocaulon have achieved this phenomenal ability to colonize new land throughout the globe by essentially blanketing the planet with minute spores that are carried like dust high in the atmosphere. Most fall ineffectually into the sea or onto substrates not conducive to germination. Rarely, a spore settles onto a patch of bare rock of the right age and texture and with enough moisture and sunlight that it germinates and, if it is lucky enough to find its symbiotic partner, grows.

- David J Flashpohler

Lichens

The still explosions on the rocks
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.

Elizabeth Bishop