Meyer[896] was among the first to be attracted by this aspect of lichen life, and after long study he came to the conclusion that growth varied in rapidity according to the prevailing conditions of the atmosphere and the nature of the substratum; but that nearly all species were very slow growers. He enumerates several,—Lichen (Xanthoria) parietinus, L. (Parmelia) tiliaceus, L. (Rhizocarpon) geographicus, L. (Haematomma) ventosus, and L. (Lecanora) saxicolus,—all species with a well-defined outline, which, after having attained some considerable size, remained practically unchanged for six and a half years, though, in some small specimens of foliose lichens, he noted, during the same period, an increase of one-fourth to one-third of their size in diameter. In one of the above crustaceous species, L. ventosus, the specimen had not perceptibly enlarged in sixteen years, though during that time the centre of the thallus had been broken up by weathering and had again been regenerated.
Meyer also records the results of culture experiments made in the open, possibly with soredia or with thalline scraps: he obtained a growth of Xanthoria parietina (on wrought iron kept well moistened), which fruited in the second year, and in five years had attained a width of 5-6 lines (about 1 cm.); Lecanora saxicola growing on a moist rock facing south grew 4-7 lines in six and a half years, and bore very minute apothecia.
Lindsay[897] quotes a statement that a specimen of Lobaria pulmonaria had been observed to occupy the same area of a tree after the lapse of half a century. Berkeley[898] records that a plant of Rhizocarpon geographicum remained in much the same condition of development during a period of twenty-five years. The latter is a slow grower and, in ordinary circumstances, it does not fruit till about fifteen years after the thallus has begun to form. Weddell[899], also commenting on the long continuance of lichens, says there are crustaceous species occupying on the rock a space that might be covered by a five-franc piece, that have taken a century to attain that size.
Phillips[900] on the other hand argues against the very great age of lichens, and suggests 20 years as a sufficient time for small plants to establish themselves on hard rocks and attain full development. He had observed a small vigorous plant of Xanthoria parietina that in the course of five years had extended outwards to double its original size. The centre then began to break up and the whole plant finally disappeared.
Exact measurements of growth have been made by several observers. Scott Elliot[901] found that a Pertusaria had increased about half a millimetre from the 1st February to the end of September. Vallot[902] kept under observation at first three then five different plants of Parmelia saxatilis during a period of eight years: the yearly increase of the thallus was half a centimetre, so that specimens of twenty centimetres in breadth must have been growing from forty to fifty years.
Bitter’s[903] observations on Parmelia physodes agree in the main with those of Vallot: the increase of the upper lobes during the year was 3-4 mm. In a more favourable climate Heere found that Parmelia caperata ([Fig. 49]) on a trunk of Aesculus in California had grown longitudinally 1·5 cm. and transversely 1 cm. The measurements extended over a period of seven winter months, five of them being wet and therefore the most favourable season of growth. In warm regions lichens attain a much greater size than in temperate or northern countries, and growth must be more rapid.
A series of measurements was also made by Heere[904] on Ramalina reticulata ([Fig. 64]), a rapid growing tree-lichen, and one of the largest American species. The shorter lobes were selected for observation, and were tested during a period of seven months from September to May, five of the months being in the wet season. There was great variation between the different lobes but the average increase during that period was 41 per cent.
Krabbe[905] took notes of the colonization of Cladonia rangiferina ([Fig. 127]) on burnt soil: in ten years the podetia had reached a height of 3 to 5 cm., giving an annual growth of about 3-5 mm. It is not unusual to find specimens in northern latitudes 18 inches long (50 cm.), which, on that computation, must have been 100 to 160 years old; but while increase goes on at the apex of the podetia, there is constant perishing at the base of at least as much as half the added length and these plants would therefore be 200 or 300 years old. Reinke[906] indeed has declared that apical growth in these Cladina species may go on for centuries, given the necessary conditions of good light and undisturbed habitat.
Other data as to rate of growth are furnished by Bonnier[907] in the account of his synthetic cultures which developed apothecia only after two to three years. The culture experiments of Darbishire[908] and Tobler[909] with Cladonia soredia are also instructive, the former with synthetic spore- and alga-cultures having obtained a growth of soredia in about seven months; the latter, starting with soredia, had a growth of well-formed squamules in nine months.
It has been frequently observed that abundance of moisture facilitates growth, and this is nowhere better exemplified than in crustaceous soil-lichens. Meyer found that on lime-clay soil which had been thrown up from a ditch in autumn, lichens such as Gyalecta geoica were fully developed the following summer. He gives an account also of another soil species, Verrucaria (Thrombium) epigaea, which attained maturity during the winter half of the year. Stahl[910] tells us that Thelidium minutulum, a pyrenocarpous soil-lichen, with a primitive and scanty thallus, was cultivated by him from spore to spore in the space of three months. Such lichens retain more of the characteristics of fungi than do those with a better developed thallus. Rapid colonization by a soil-lichen was also observed in Epping Forest by Paulson[911]. In autumn an extensive growth of Lecidea uliginosa covered as if with a dark stain patches of soil that had been worn bare during the previous spring. The lichen had reached full development and was well fruited.