Usnea
| Usnea | ||||||||||||
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Usnea australis |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Usnea | ||||||||||||
| Dill. ex Adans. |
The genus Usnea includes lichens that grow mostly hanging from trees. Many species are called beard lichens or treebeard and are gray or greenish. Representatives of the genus are often referred to as beard lichens.
features
Beard lichens are bush- to beard-shaped shrub lichens with round, thread-like branches; they are gray to yellowish green. The bearings are usually five to ten centimeters long and have only grown in one place. In mountainous areas with clean air, however, they can reach much greater lengths; in areas with higher air pollution they become shorter. There are often hemispherical to pin-shaped protrusions on the threads. You can break up soredio or wear isidia . If you pull on the strands, initially only the bark and pith tear open, so that the central white pith is exposed. Apothecia are very rare in some species, but can be present regularly in some if well developed.
Types (selection)
- Common Treebeard ( U. filipendula )
- Pit lichen ( U. hirta )
- U. barbata
- Beard lichen ( U. florida )
- U. longissima
- U. dasypoga .
ecology
Beard lichens grow on coniferous and deciduous trees with sour bark . They prefer areas with high levels of precipitation and cold air areas.
particularities
In some species (such as Usnea barbata, whose antibiotic effect was also used by the surgeon Mikulicz ) the antibiotic usnic acid was discovered, which is now synthetically produced. In the highlands of South America, a rock-dwelling species is used as a tea against coughs.
Usnea florida can be used to monitor local climate changes using lichen mapping.
Similar genera
Among the bush lichens , the beard lichens are characterized by their thread-like (not ribbon-like), greenish beds. The genus Bryoria has brown to gray threads; the white central strand is also missing.
See also
- The name Usnea also gave the botanical name (usneoides = usnea-like) to the Spanish moss ( Tillandsia usneoides ) because of the similarity in growth . This species also forms "tree beards", but belongs to the bromeliad family .
- In folk botany, there is often no further distinction between beard lichens and Cetraria species.
- The Usnea Plug , a volcanic hill on King George Iceland in the archipelago of the South Shetland Islands , the lichen genus is named.
literature
- Volkmar Wirth: The lichens of Baden-Württemberg. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8001-3325-3 .
- Ulrich Kirschbaum, Volkmar Wirth: Recognizing lichens. Determine air quality . Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8001-3486-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Josef Richard Möse: Folk herbal medicine in the light of modern antibiotic research. Die Heilkunst (1958), No. 7, pp. 248-251; P. 364 f.
- ^ Rudolf Fritz Weiss: Textbook of Phytotherapy. 5th edition Stuttgart 1982, p. 65 f.
- ↑ VDI 3957 sheet 20: 2017-07 Biological measurement methods for determining and assessing the effects of air pollution (biomonitoring); Mapping of lichens to determine the effect of local climate changes (Biological measuring techniques for the determination and evaluation of effects of air pollutants (biomonitoring); Mapping of lichens to indicate local climate change). Beuth Verlag, Berlin, p. 6.
- ↑ Gundolf Keil : The beard lichen as food. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 107–121, here: p. 111 f.