A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1229 entries
soredia
Soredia are the reproductive granules of a lichen: tiny bundles containing a few algal cells wrapped in fungal threads, produced in powdery masses that break through the surface and are carried off by wind, rain, or an animal brushing past. Each one contains both partners already assembled, so a soredium can start a new lichen anywhere it lands without the fungus having to find an alga.
Etymology
The word is Greek, from a term meaning a heap, and the singular is soredium. The powdery patch they emerge from is a soralium. Lichenology has an unusually well-developed vocabulary for reproductive structures because they are frequently the only way to identify a species, and the terms are almost entirely Greek.