Story behind the art of Christiane Fashek

Curious Allies: Mutualism in Fungi, Parasites, and Carnivores

The Fifth New York Botanical Garden Triennial

Soldiering On

Cladonia cristatella

This depiction of Cladonia cristatella is part of a proposed florilegium for the Embankment Coalition in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was the only lichen listed in the survey of flora atop the disused train embankments of the Harsimus Branch. The Coalition hopes to convert these city-block-wide, three-story high stone structures into a connected park in the vein of New York City’s High Line (embankment.org). A florilegium will draw attention to the cause.

A departure from my first series of tree-lichen renderings, this species is soil-bound with squamulose podetia (scaly stalks) but is primarily known for its eye-catching red caps. The distinctive caps are the lichen’s fruiting bodies, or apothecia, and suggest its common name, British soldier lichen. The fruiting bodies are a cool crimson when dry but plump up and radiate a spectrum of warm red hues when dampened. Color studies of red blends were a great help. The green stalks turn yellow-green when damp and minty-green when dry. I took photos of each specimen from various angles in dry and damp states to understand the lichen’s form and texture.

I scaled up 10 times to capture the stalk’s bumpy textures in colored pencil so I could understand and convey what was happening in this twisted, conjoined mass of green tubes. The magnification also helped me convincingly portray the lichen’s connection to its sandy soil substrate. The silhouette of the specimen’s actual size is my favorite part of the piece.



As the submission loomed, I brought the piece with me on my travels. Thanks go to my extended family for allowing me to build makeshift workspaces in their homes. The title, Soldiering On, is as much a nod to managing to capture this funny little organism despite my surroundings as it is to the common name.

British soldier lichen is a symbiosis of Cladonia cristatella fungus and Trebouxia erici alga. The fungus offers minerals and a scaffold to protect the alga. The alga photosynthesizes to nourish the fungus. This bond exemplifies mutualism in lichens.

Spiraling

Candelariella vitellina, Physcia aipolia, Ramalina americana, Ramalina complanata, Ramalina sinensis, Teloschistes chrysophthalmus, Teloschistes exilis, Quercus fusiformis

With the exhibition Curious Allies in mind, I set out on a blustery morning in the waning days of 2022. This cluster of lichens was waving from a twig on a fallen branch. It looked like a tiny upside-down bouquet with bursts of orange amid the typical Texas Hill Country lichen palette of greys and greens. Its natural habit highlighted its most striking aspect: the spiral of Ramalina complanata twisting around the pale Physcia-covered twig.

Time for an “EAT ME” cake. I scaled up in multiples of 7, too small! I scaled up in multiples of 3, too big! Months flew by as I spiraled down this rabbit hole. After many attempts at scaling these lichenized fungi, I settled on multiples of 4, just right!

At 16:1, I could accurately detail the golden-eyed lichen’s cilia, the tiny bifurcations at the tips of the slender orange bush lichens, and the twists and turns of both species’ branches in colored pencil. I could depict the bumpy Ramalina’s pseudocyphellae and differentiate between the cartilage lichen’s deeply creased straps and the lightly textured cortex of the sinewed bushy lichen.

Unwilling to risk the lichens’ shapeshifting, I did not spray them with distilled water. In this precariously dry state, the golden-eyed cluster detached. As irritating as this was, it allowed for a closer look under the microscope. I started laying color on this species, opting for a watercolor tea wash of the apothecia. As I was registering my dislike of the undertone, I dropped the brush, leaving an orange welt at the bottom of the drawing, outside the cluster’s silhouette.

%@*&!

I blotted and lifted and waited for daylight. I laid a thin layer of titanium white watercolor and put down my brush for good. The rest of the piece is colored pencil. I drew the nearest Ramalina a new lobe, encompassing the mistake.

The impending deadline shifted my focus toward what needed “doing.” I followed the spiral of Ramalina straps, making textural changes to depict the three species until I reached the upper third of the piece. At this point, I jumped down another rabbit hole and was nearly lost in the thicket of Teloschistes exilis.

This cluster integrates the three common lichen types: crustose, crust-like lichens that live directly on bark or rock and have no lower surface, Candellariella vitellina; foliose, having flat, leaf-like lobes with a top and bottom surface of the same color, Physcia aipolia; and fruticose, bushy or shrubby, the most plant-like, they have a top and bottom surface of different colors, Ramalina americana, Ramalina complanata, Ramalina sinensis, Teloschistes chrysophthalmus and Teloschistes exilis.  

The Physcia on this twig of Texas live oak is resistant to pollution and is used as a bioindicator by the USDA. The alga in a lichen’s fungal-algal symbiont must photosynthesize the air and water in its environment. Fruticose lichens, particularly the Teloschistes tufts, are the best bioindicators revealing regional measures of elements such as chromium and nitrogen in excess in the lichen’s biome. This robust cluster of various lichen species suggests the Hill Country habitat is a healthy environment despite recent bouts of extreme weather.

Top to bottom following a backwards S in 4 planes of depth:

Top, In atmospheric depth:

Physcia aipolia, hoary rosette lichen. Gray foliose lichen wrapped around the twig with convoluted apothecia.

Candelariella vitellina, common goldspeck lichen. Yellow crustose lichen on the left side of the twig, and Physcia, directly above an orange Teloschistes exilis apothecium.

Background:

Teloschistes exilis, slender orange bush lichen. Shallow, dark-orange apothecia on twisting, yellow-green branches, bifurcating at the tips.

Midground, moving right to left down the spiral:

Ramalina americana, sinewed ramalina ribbon lichen. Right: Pale green, leathery, flattened non-warty thallus; apothecia have cracked margins and are terminal.

Ramalina complanata, cartilage lichen. Middle: grey-green, bumpy apothecia margins, papillate cortex with abundant tuberculate pseudocyphellae, apothecia terminal.

Ramalina sinensis, threadbare ribbon lichen. Left: yellowish-green, broad flattened branches with reticulately wrinkled, chondroid strands, apothecia subterminal.

Physcia aipolia, hoary rosette lichen. Blue-grey cortex, wrapped around the oak twig, abundant pruinose apothecia. A young outgrowth of this species is growing down a flattened branch of R. complanata to the immediate right.

Foreground:

Physcia aipolia, hoary rosette lichen. Tufts of shallow yellow-orange apothecia with ciliate margins on twisting, yellow-green branches, also ciliate.

Ramalina complanate, cartilage lichen. Right: flat, green-grey branch with abundant psuedocyphellae.

Substrate:

Quercus fusiformis Texas live oak. The blue-grey Physcia is wrapped around a live oak twig. The other lichens are also lightly attached to it.

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Read more about this artist's work: 26th Annual