Beard Lichen

Beard lichen is the everyday name for Usnea, a genus of roughly 130 shrubby (fruticose) lichens in the family Parmeliaceae. Like every lichen it is a partnership between a fungus and an alga. It grows as small leafless tufts or trailing strands fixed to bark and twigs, now and then to rock, and is told apart from its look-alikes by the stretchy cord that runs through the centre of each branch. Its colour ranges from pale or yellowish green to grey-green, reddish or mottled. The genus is spread across temperate and tropical regions of both hemispheres, but thrives only where the air is clean, so it is used as a marker of air quality. People have used it as a traditional medicine, a source of textile dyes, a fire starter and, in hard winters, an emergency food. In European lore, Anglo-Saxon healers turned to Usnea against elf sickness, an illness blamed on elves, and lichen was carried in charms to draw luck and keep negative energy away. Modern witchcraft links lichen with luck, prosperity, psychic work and contact with forest spirits, and lays it on the altar at Samhain in memory of loved ones who have died.