Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Erin A Tripp and James C. Lendemer

What a daunting task, and what an impressive accomplishment. The Smokies has 909 – count ‘em – species of lichens! Not surprisingly that’s the most of any National Park – big braggin’ rights, I reckon! And it has nearly half of all those lichens found in the Eastern United States. Good news – the maps for each species show NOT just where the lichens occur in the Park, but in the Eastern U.S. and, when appropriate, the whole continent.  So, this book is basically a guide to half the lichens in this half of the country and many in the whole continent. This guide excels in providing the context for the study of lichens in the Park. It starts with explaining “Lichen Biology,” then speaks of the evolution of the landscape of the Park, and zonks in on its diversity, covering both plants and animals. Then it gets to the crux of the matter with over 400 pages of the Field Guide itself, going species by species with color photos, those maps I spoke of earlier, and, for each “notes” and “key fea