Lichens at Rozel Point

Last spring on one of my many trips out to Rozel Point in Great Salt Lake, I climbed up to the top of Rozel Hill with my family. They, of course, got way ahead of me because I was too busy taking pictures of lichen on rocks. I am always in wonderment and admiration of Lichen. Not only can they live everywhere (even on the harsh salty shores of Great Salt Lake), but they thrive with beautiful colors that range from orange to blue to purple.

Lichen really do live everywhere. They are hearty little fungi/algae/bacteria that thrive in the harshest environment. The partnership between the fungi and the algae or cyanobacteria within the lichen allows it to survive with little water and extreme heat or cold.

So, an ordinary and ubiquitous rock found on the shore of Great Salt Lake can hold the most interesting and beautifully colored organism…which I then took a picture of and proceeded to design a project bag for me.

This is a silly little project but I like its quirkiness. My husband thinks it looks like a psychedelic giraffe but it reminds me of that one ordinary day at the Lake on an ordinary hike seeing an ordinary rock with ordinary lichen. But that lichen was not really ordinary, it was hiding a life of extraordinary survival and beauty.