Lichenology

Lichenology is the branch of mycology that studies the lichens, symbiotic organisms made up by the association of a microscopical alga with a filamentous fungus.

The taxonomy of lichens was first intensively investigated by the Swedish botanist Erik Acharius (1757-1819), who is therefore sometimes named the "father of lichenology". Acharius was a student of Carolus Linnaeus. Some of his more important works on the subject, which marked the beginning of lichenology as a discipline, are:

* "Lichenographiae Suecia prodromus" (1798)
* "Methodus lichenum" (1803)
* "Lichenographia universalis" (1810)
* "Synopsis methodica lichenum" (1814)

Later lichenologists include the American botanist Edward Tuckerman and the Russian evolutionary biologist Konstantin Merezhkovsky.

External links

* [http://www.lichenology.org/ International Association for Lichenology] *