Discovering Wonderland

Moss is moss, right?  The bane of gardeners seeking the perfect lawn, yes.  The soft, fluffy, squidgy, damp and very green stuff that makes temperate rainforests so atmospheric, yes.  But I never thought to look beyond that.

And lichen?  I admit, the colourful rosettes on rocks can make a spectacular display, but their scaly nature is perhaps a little repellent.  And when they look like fungi on tree branches, the hint of decay is not so appealing

Who would have thought that when you look at them close-up through your phone camera  you’d feel as if you were peeping into a miniature fairy-tale land,

with turrets and trumpets and spears and jewels and serpents…  

I’m not a botanist or even a biologist and the closest I’ve ever come to looking at plants in detail was pressing flowers as a child.  (I say ‘plants’ for want of a better general term - it turns out that  lichens are not actually plants at all, but symbiotic colonies of rfıngus and algze or bacteria.) But last winter I became totally absorbed in the world of moss and lichen, unlikely as it might seem.  

All thanks to an online art course.  The online Natural History Illustration programme at Aberystwyth University piqued my interest and the topic of the first module available this was … mosses and lichens. Not quite what I had in mind, but I was keen to get started.  I signed up.  

After that, every dog walk became a moss and lichen hunt.  I would need some photos for reference.  Although to start with I wasn’t sure I’d find anything at all.  Mosses and lichen need damp to survive, right?  In Mediterranean Turkey our winters are pretty wet, but during the hot summer we can go months without a drop of rain for months at a time.  

I needn't have worried.  It turns out both moss and lichen have adapted to survive heat and drought by going dormant and desiccated.  When the winter rain starts they simply come back to life.  And what life! When I started looking I found the north-facing banks above the forest tracks near our home are literally carpeted with all sorts of damp-loving vegetation.  

And here’s the thing.  I’ve walked these tracks many, many times.  But until I started looking with a purpose, I’d never really registered that it was anything more than ‘greenery’.  Sometimes it seems a purpose is needed to focus our powers of observation.

I started to pick out many different sorts of mosses and lichen.  

Mosses with different shaped leaves, from tiny ‘stars’ to feathery fronds several centimeters long, to catkin-like tassels layered up in thick mats, many with forests of little ‘spears’, pointing to the sky. Lichen like little bushes, or with notched lobes large and small, or scale-like, or veneered flat onto a rock, even some that appear little more than powder; and in colours varying from mustard yellow to pale green and white. The lobed lichens were often peppered with trumpet- or cup-like structures larger than the lobes.  

And just like that, my daily dog- walks were transformed into journeys of wonder and discovery.  I became fascinated with finding the extraordinary within the ordinary.  All that's required, I found, is to take the time to look more closely at what’s around you. The reward? The everyday world opens to reveal breathtakingly unique new worlds within, like russian dolls.  

I love exploring when I'm out walking - I can never resist the urge to ‘just see what's around the next corner’, not sure of what I might find.  And for me, seeking out these new tiny worlds has turned out to be the astonishing micro side of the exploration coin. 

So if you're looking to add some zing into your regular routines outdoors, be it dogwalking, shopping, queuing, waiting for a train… why not take a moment next to look a little closer at something you would normally pass over.  What's that plant growing between the paving stones?  What do the insects on that leaf look like up close?  How about that feather caught on that hedge? 

As Alice found out in Wonderland…curiosity is key.

Nature is a wonderland of beauty and strangeness and inventiveness, comprising worlds far beyond our comprehension and imagination. And to dip our toes into this magical new world, all we need to do is open our eyes…and wonder.

Top tip: A phone camera and / or hand lens can enhance the experience even more!