Thornton Burgess Nature Program- Lichens led by Tom Walker

Lichens are a unique pairing of fungi and algae, and they’re everywhere around us. Naturalists Tom Walker has been studying Cape Cod lichen’s carefully over the past few years and will share information about the life history of lichens, how to distinguish common species from each other and how they fit into the larger ecosystem. We will spend the first part of the class inside reviewing the basics of lichen identification and biology, before venturing out to explore the various lichen species present on Green Briar Grounds.

Tom Walker is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries biology. He spent several years as a biological technician with the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in the Pacific northwest surveying birds and various plants and animals. As a Cape Cod naturalist he has developed considerable skill identifying birds, trees, shrubs, wildflowers, ferns, lichens and fungi and to a lesser degree mosses and liverworts. Tom is also the lead administrator of the very popular Facebook group Lichens, Mosses, Ferns and Fungi which has over 40,000 members and counting.