Embedded Files
Website Under Construction
Explore Kew’s hidden lichen hotspots, from the Rock Garden’s vibrant crustose mosaics to ancient tree bark communities in the Arboretum. These living micro-landscapes reveal Kew’s quiet biodiversity treasures, showcasing species adapted to stone, bark, and shade. Visiting Kew’s lichen spots offers a unique window into overlooked urban nature.
Explore crustose, foliose, and fruticose lichens across rock, bark, and living collections. Use a hand lens to observe colours, margins, and reproductive structures. Look for key families such as Parmeliaceae, Cladoniaceae, and Teloschistaceae. Compare shaded and sunlit microhabitats. Photograph specimens only—please avoid touching lichens to protect their delicate thalli.
Rock Blocks
Rock Blocks
Colorful lichens form diverse colonies across the surfaces of rock blocks
Conifers
Conifers
Delicate lichens can be seen on the pine trees
Bricks
Bricks
Beautiful lichens appear on brick paving in several walkway spots.
Kew Through a Hand Lens
Kew Through a Hand Lens
Kew Through a Hand Lens invites viewers into the hidden micro-worlds that flourish across the garden. By magnifying the overlooked—lichens, bark textures, stone-dwelling organisms—this series reveals the delicate structures, quiet interactions, and unexpected biodiversity that shape Kew’s living landscape, offering a new perspective on nature at its smallest scales.
Rock Garden
Rock Garden
More than thirty saxicolous lichen species appear in this section of the garden, creating a beautiful spot where visitors can explore vivid diversity through subtle colours and unique textures here.
Tour Advice (2 Hours)
Tour Advice (2 Hours)
Use your hand lens and phone to explore lichens on sunlit rocks, capturing clear images of crustose forms. Continue into shaded areas to observe foliose and fruticose lichens, noting variations in colour and texture. Pay attention to differences between dry, moist, exposed, and sheltered microhabitats, and document these through photography. Please enjoy the lichens responsibly—observe closely but do not touch.
More than thirty saxicolous lichen species appear in this section of the garden, creating a beautiful spot where visitors can explore vivid diversity through subtle colours and unique textures here.
Rock Garden
Rock Garden
More than thirty saxicolous lichen species appear in this section of the garden, creating a beautiful spot where visitors can explore vivid diversity through subtle colours and unique textures here.
Rock Garden
Rock Garden
A small pool near the Jodrell Laboratory sits above an underground structure, its surrounding stones richly covered with lichens that thrive in the damp, shaded microhabitat.
Several lichens can be found growing on Araucaria trees, taking advantage of their distinctive, overlapping scales. The tough, spiralled leaves create excellent microhabitats that trap moisture and light, allowing both foliose and crustose species to establish. Araucaria offers one of the most favourable lichen substrates in this part of Kew.
Araucaria trees
Araucaria trees
The Araucaria tree at Kew Gardens stands close to the Orangery, easily visible along the nearby pathways.
A single stone settled in the grass can support an unexpected variety of lichen species, each occupying its own tiny niche. Their subtle colours, delicate textures, and distinct growth forms reveal a hidden community shaped by light, moisture, and time. I invite you to pause here, observe these quiet companions, and discover their living mosaic.
Rock Garden
Rock Garden
A pine tree in Kew can host several distinctive lichens, each adapted to its resinous bark and shifting light. Cladonia, Flavoparmelia, and crustose species often share this singular habitat, creating subtle patterns across the trunk and branches. The pine’s textured surface offers one of Kew’s most remarkable substrates, inviting visitors to notice how these quiet organisms enrich its natural beauty.
Pine tree
Pine tree
Lichens on Magnolia trees at Kew Gardens form delicate mosaics of crustose and foliose species, thriving on the bark’s varied texture. They reflect excellent air quality and create microhabitats for insects. Their subtle colours and forms add quiet ecological richness, revealing the garden’s long-standing harmony between trees and epiphytic life.
Magnolia Trees
Magnolia Trees
Lichens on Magnolia trees at Kew Gardens form delicate mosaics of crustose and foliose species, thriving on the bark’s varied texture. They reflect excellent air quality and create microhabitats for insects. Their subtle colours and forms add quiet ecological richness, revealing the garden’s long-standing harmony between trees and epiphytic life.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse