Thumbs Up To Oystercatcher Girl – a.k.a. Victoria artist Anne Hansen – for a winning $4,000 bid that will give her the right to name a new species of lichen discovered by University of B.C. researcher Trevor Goward, with proceeds to the Ancient Forest Alliance.
An auction for the right to name the lichens raised $17,900 for The Land Conservancy and $4,000 for the Ancient Forest Alliance. Artist Anne Hansen, of Victoria, made the winning bid on the hairlike bryoria lichen, which will be known as Bryoria kockiana in memory of her husband, Henry Kock. "Henry was a tireless champion of biodiversity and inconspicuous species like toads, lichens and sedges," Hansen said.
Hansen won the naming rights to a newly discovered species of lichen from BC’s inland rainforest, which she plans to name in honour of her late husband. Proceeds from the auction will go to the Ancient Forest Alliance, a new non-profit organization working to protect BC’s old-growth forests and forestry jobs.
The new species of horsehair lichen will be called Bryoria kockiana for Henry Kock, former interpretive horticulturist at the U of G Arboretum and a leading authority on native woody plants. He died in 2005 of brain cancer. His wife, Anne Hansen, purchased the scientific naming rights to the lichen this week.
She will name the lichen after her deceased husband, Henry Kock, horticulturist and author of Growing Trees from Seed (Firefly Books Ltd, 2008). The book was completed by his botanical colleagues after his death. Kock (pronounced “Coke”) was the public face of the Arboretum at the University of Guelph for 20 years. He died of brain cancer on December 25, 2005. Hansen moved from Ontario to BC in 2007.
As a taxonomist, I'm also delighted if my work can in some way help to preserve critical habitats for the organisms I study. As this is a first trial run of taxonomic tithing in Canada, I accept that it will take time for Canadians really to get behind this new method of conservation fund raising.
There are species named after famous people: Strigiphilus garylarsoni is a louse named after the cartoonist Gary Larson.
Diverse mosses, licorice ferns and lobaria “lettuce” lichens and more fauna grows on the trees in Mossy Maple. According to Wu, Mossy Maple hosts more plants growing on trees than any other trees in North America. The area is also home to bears, cougars, elk and a host of other wildlife.
"I can't help but think it would be the perfect Christmas present," said MacKinnon, coauthor of The Plants of Coastal B.C., which has sold 300,000 copies and is described as the Bible of B.C. botany.
"I'm sure you've heard the phrase 'A lichen is forever,' " he said.
Time is running out to have a treasured name live on in a lichen species. The contest to name two new species of lichen found in British Columbia’s rainforests closes December 15, so get brainstorming and start bidding!
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