Color Challenge - Tuesday Orange - Seaside Crustose Lichens

Hi steemit friends,

For my entry into today's colorchallenge, I am sharing a photo that I took this past weekend while my girlfriend and I were out with some friends exploring the local outdoors. As I've mentioned in several of my last posts, a few of my friends and I have made it an annual tradition to take fall photos outside together while the leaves are changing colours. During our day, we visited several different locations, searching for the very best trees. One of these locations took us to a local beach, where I managed to find a section of large rocks alongside the water. These rocks were covered in the beautiful orange crustose lichens that you can see below.

For those of you who are not aware, lichens are very unique in that they are made up of two different types of organisms - fungi and algae (or fungi and cyanobacteria). The combination of these two organisms is what is known as a symbiotic relationship, wherein both organisms receive a benefit as part of their living arrangement. Essentially, the fungi are not capable of making their own carbohydrates to use as energy, but the algae are very capable of doing this and don't mind sharing. In return, the fungi provide the algae with a supply of nutrients and water.

Together, this duo makes a pretty good team - and a fairly photogenic one in this case!