The boulder beneath this miniature jungle was part of the same rock slide as the rock in the BPotD entry on lichen diversity, yet it supports different organisms. Unlike the dome-shaped rock less than 10m away that was covered by the crustose lichens, this boulder has crevasses and depressions which accumulate water, air-borne dust and organic material at a comparatively rapid rate. After forty years, this boulder is not only blanketed by these non-vascular organisms (roadside rock moss, pixie cup lichen and club cladonia), but some vascular plants have started to colonize it as well: parsley fern, grasses and saxifrages – a small-scale example of ecological succession.

Botany resource link: Native American Ethnobotany database from the University of Michigan - Dearborn. “A Database of Foods, Drugs, Dyes and Fibers of Native American Peoples, Derived from Plants.”