There are six or so species of deer lichen that carpet the Florida scrub habitat. The photographed species have been tentatively identified as Cladina evansii (Abbayes) Hale & W.L. Culberson; the yellowish as Cladina subtenuis (same authorities). The scrub is a xeric community of stunted oaks and sand pines dependent on fire. The deer lichen are primary succession pioneers, moving onto bare sand and starting the long road to soil. (To learn more about primary succession, click on the link: http://www.uncwil.edu/bio/ksucc.htm )

Lichen are a symbiotic organism; a fungus generally in the ascomycetes and a species of algae usually a Trebouxia, Pseudotrebouxia, or Trentepohlia or the cyanobacterium, Nostoc. The relationship has evolved to where the fungus is an obligate parasite (can no longer live without the alga) and in many cases the fungus and alga are obligate mutualists (neither can survive without the other). But the symbiosis of lichen was not always evident.

In 1869, Simon Schwendener proposed the dual nature of lichen, "As a result of my researches, the lichen are not simple plants, not individuals in the ordinary sense of the word; they are, rather, colonies...This master is a fungus...Its slaves are green algae, which it has sought out, or indeed caught hold of, and compelled into its service." (Ahmadjian 1993:4 translation from Die Algentypen der Flechtgoniden. Programm fur die Rectorsfeier der Universitat Basel 4:1-42 (1869)).

Dr. Schwendener was promptly ridiculed by the established scientific community. James M. Crombie, a prominent naturalist, wrote in the Popular Science Review (1874), "sensational Romance of Lichenology...an unnatural union between a captive Algal damsel and a tyrant Fungal master...." The Victorian era intelligentsia began calling anyone who colored outside the lines of scientific thinking a "Schwendenerist".

In 1896, Helen B. Potter wrote a paper on her microscopic examinations of lichen. Potter's studies supported Schwendener's hypothesis. Her uncle, Sir Henry Roscoe, was finally given the opportunity to present her paper to the Linnaean Society on April 1, 1897. Potter was not allowed anywhere near the assembly of distinguished gentlemen.

The Linnaean Society probably picked that date because of significance as stated in Poor Robin's Almanac (1790):

The first of April, some do say, April the first,

Is set apart for All Fools' Day.

But why the people call it so,

Nor I, nor they themselves do know.

But on this day are people sent

On purpose for pure merriment.

After a few episodes with the intellectuals of the time, Helen B. Potter kept her scientific studies to herself. She even wrote her diary in a cipher that was not decoded until 1966. Potter supported herself writing Peter Rabbit and other books using her middle name.

Schwendener, in the meantime, had gone on with his life. He became the first chair of the biology department of the University of Berlin. He wrote of his studies of plants, "...what I have...is an anatomical and physiological view of all tissues,...which will revive the...motionless theory of anatomy by explaining the relation between construction and function...." Eventually, he was vindicated by numerous scientists studying lichen. By the end of his life in 1919, Schwendener wrote, "Fighting for science I have grown old, but I have been successful."