Lichen Exchange

Lichen Lover's would be delighted to trade lichens with you. If you have some great lichen covered soil, branches, or rocks that are alive and healthy and would like to trade for some of our lichens please eMail lichen@lichenlovers.org. There are hundreds of lichen covered rocks in our lichen garden and millions on the surrounding land. Our conservatory's garden features lichens from Ohio, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas.

Unsolicited Donations

We especially appreciate unsolicited donations of lichen covered rocks from exotic places. If the price of shipping rocks is too much, we also enjoy receiving dry lichen flakes scraped from rocks. We promise to plant all materials received in the best enviroment available to us for increasing the biodiversity of our lichen garden and conserving the species that you send.

Our climate

The lichen conservatory is located at high altitude in a cold desert so the lichens here are particularly fond of a high, cold, dry, and very sunny location. Cacti and succulents grow well here. Average annual rainfall is about 10 inches, evenly distributed throught the year. Snowfall in some years might be as much as 2 feet, and in other years as little as a few inches. USDA zone 5/6.

Our lichens

The surrounding wildland primarily grows light green lichens on sedimentary rocks. We also have an abundance of cryptobiotic soil on which a white/green lichen thrives. The color changes based on the amount of water in the soil. The conservatory lacks a forest so we can't offer much in the way of woodland lichens, or lichens that prefer moist enviornments. There's a few lichens growing on midget sagebrush... tiny little things.

Tell us about your climate

If you send lichens please include a description of the water, light, temperature, and other environmental factors at the location where your lichen was growing so that we can try to provide a similar environment for it.