{"id":4398,"date":"2018-03-28T00:20:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T23:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4398"},"modified":"2018-03-28T00:20:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T23:20:11","slug":"about-lichens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4398","title":{"rendered":"About Lichens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWe mentioned Lichens in a previous issue of Whats On and with the launch of the new Lichen Trail down at Goldsland Farm in the next few months it is worth reviewing why they might be on interest to anyone. As soon as you walk out onto the pavement you will find yourself treading on round or irregular white and yellow blobs. They are on walls, roofs, fences, trees and the gravestones in the churchyard. In fact they are the dominant species on 8% of the \"\"world's land surface whether on the frozen tundra, arid deserts or forests.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThey have their uses. They are eaten not only by reindeer but by people – Iwatake is a delicacy in Japan. They have been used for dyeing for centuries and are mentioned in the Old Testament. They were once a considerable cottage industry with the lichens being scraped off rocks by people with metal hoops or even seashells and then processed in factories. One near Glasgow covered 17 acres and worked its way through 250 tons a year.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThey have been used in the perfume and cosmetics industries since the 16th century and if you use Calvin Klein, Estee Lauder or Yves St Laurent you will have been applying some lichen extract to yourself. Some have antibiotic properties and were used in babies nappies in New Zealand. Popular in folk medicines and used to indicate pollution levels and the presence of metals, they are now being considered to help clear up or extract toxic or valuable metals.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the fascination of lichens very few people study them so experts are few and far between. If you are a teacher, particularly at the Primary level, the topic opens up all sorts of possibilities linking into other disciplines such as design, medicine, art, environment and nutrition. If you are interested, get in touch with the Wildlife Group who will be happy to work with you to produce audio-visual presentations, teachers notes and short outdoor activities.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Wildlife Group commissioned a survey at Goldsland in preparation for the Trail and this identified 21 different species close to the barns. Interestingly, there were no examples of the lichen featured in the photo which is an Usnea species. These are intolerant of high levels of nitrogen which is exactly what you would expect in and around a dairy farm. This photo was taken on the trees close to the library in the centre of Wenvoe.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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We mentioned Lichens in a previous issue of Whats On and with the launch of the new Lichen Trail down at Goldsland Farm in the next few months it is worth reviewing why they might be on interest to anyone. As soon as you walk out onto the pavement you will find yourself treading on round or irregular white and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-18W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2776,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=2776","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":0},"title":"Lichens are fungi","author":"Alan Williams","date":"2nd March 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 They are all around you as soon as you step out of the house - on your roof, on the pavement, on the trees, the walls and the fences. Yet most of us do not notice them. They grow where little else can, slowly but steadily. They come in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3622,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3622","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":1},"title":"Volunteer of The Year","author":"Alan Williams","date":"25th August 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 We were delighted to hear that Mervyn Greenwood was runner-up in the Wales Volunteer of the Year awards judged by Keep Wales Tidy. It is a great achievement, particularly bearing in mind how many hundreds, possibly thousands, of volunteers there are in Wales. The judges commented: 'The application\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13218,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13218","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":2},"title":"WILDLIFE GROUP","author":"Alan Williams","date":"3rd July 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 WILDLIFE GROUP Turning out with other volunteers on the School's Big Help Out we installed two planters, filled them with soil and planted them up with pollinator-friendly plants. A bird feeder was erected which will really come into its own in the Autumn and through Winter. Mike Tucker created\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Picture17.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3860,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3860","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":3},"title":"Future Projects","author":"Alan Williams","date":"31st October 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 To those of you, particularly those moving into Wenvoe, if you have an interest in wildlife and would like to help our furry and feathered friends, not to mention flowers, trees, lichens and insects, do get in touch with the Wildlife Group. We now have 7 sites and there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5827,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=5827","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":4},"title":"Wildflower Beds and Orchard Maintenance","author":"Alan Williams","date":"6th May 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Year 1s from Gwenfo CW Primary School joined us to spread the wildflower seed on our bed in Grange Park. You can see their personalised labels in the ground on their chosen patches. We were lucky with the weather which meant that for the first time they could choose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Bees.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1078,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=1078","url_meta":{"origin":4398,"position":5},"title":"Ancient Trees","author":"Alan Williams","date":"7th October 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Possibly the oldest in Wales? Recently we wrote about Citizen Science - how anyone can contribute to what we know about our world by recording what they see. One example is the Ancient Tree Register managed by the Woodland Trust. The Wildlife Group is registered as a recording group\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}