We don’t get to vote often enough. Look at the United States. They’re constantly voting on everything. Everyone seems to be some sort of politician. From presidents to dogcatchers, they all seem to be running for office.
We only get to vote on rare occasions. Far less often than some might like, but we could use to vote more.
This is one of those occasions. We currently have the chance to vote for our favourite lichen.
If you’re like me, you probably haven’t given the lowly lichen much thought. There are quite a few of them, but they don’t exactly stand up and get noticed. Or maybe they do, but since they grow on rocks they still keep a pretty low profile.
Lichen are a pretty confusing thing. Unless you happen to be a caribou, in which case they are generally known as lunch. But they are not just one thing. They are made up of algae and or bacteria, mixed in with fungi. They look sort of like plants, but they aren’t actually plants. It’s confusing.
But the big news is, the Canadian Museum of Nature wants us to vote for our favourite lichen. You just go to their web page and on the right hand side you see the place to click on to vote for your lichen of choice. Or you can go to nature.ca/lichenvote . There are seven types of lichen to vote for. I kind of like the orange one, but you can decide for yourself.
You only have until March 20 to vote. After that, Canada will have a new national lichen. It’s important to have your say.
