#bellicidia

Bellicidia incompta (syn. Bacidia incompta)

Sap groove lichen

This lichen forms a granular or mealy crust of pale gray, green, or fawn in the wonded and sap-tracked areas of elm trees in Eurasia, with smaller populations in Tunisia and North America. Currently, European elm populations are being absolutly desimated by Dutch elm disease--caused another, less friendly fungus, Ophiostoma novo-ulmi. Fewer elms means fewer species that rely on elms for survival, such as B. incompta. In a lot of ways, that’s just how the system of natural selection works, but that doesn’t mean we have to feel nothing about it, or that we shouldn’t investigate what is happening and figure out our part in it, and mitigate the destruction where possible. All those things can exist at once and that’s just what it means to live on this planet.