PREHISTORIC GROWTHS.
Wc find in lichens real prehistoric growths. The lichens we can see and examine to-day are similar to those which existed tens of thousands of years ago. The growths which spread themselves over rocks and old walls are a combination of a fungus and countless thousands of algae. The fungus, unable to make its own way in the world, has enmeshed huge numbers of green algal cells, living on the food material which they produce. That many of these plants are tens of thousands of years old is proved by the fact that by scraping away the crust of lichens the abrasions caused by the passage of ice during the glacial period arc as fresh as though they had been made recently. The lichen has protected them from the weather ever since. The glacial age is said by some scientists to have ended over 80,000 years ago.
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Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)
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149PREHISTORIC GROWTHS. Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)
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