Word: lichen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bible. The "hyssop that groweth out of the wall" might be any one of many wall-growing plants. The manna that fed the Children of Israel has been variously explained as a gum that forms on desert trees, as algae that grow overnight on dew-covered ground, as a lichen that blows around the desert, even as migrating quail. The Moldenkes have confidence in none of these theories. They think that manna was a legendary product with no botanical origin. The Children of Israel had no theory about it except that it came from the Lord. Their word...
When scientists try to explain the weatherworn, lichen-covered slabs, the activities of past diggers are as much hindrance as help. Inquisitive Roman legionaries made some confusing excavations. One of the larger stones, or Trilithons, is said to have fallen in 1620 when the Duke of Buckingham dug for buried gold. For years a Salisbury hotel kept a heavy hammer for the use of guests who were amateur relic hunters...
...downward-curving horns and a morose expression. It is even harder to know. Though it once roamed as far south as Kentucky, it never learned to duck when hunters began shooting; now all but extinct, the musk ox lives on the fringe of the Arctic, where it munches lichen and other inferior fodder, and apparently spends a great deal of time watching it snow...
...this, the ox only produces one calf a year and seldom more than three in a lifetime, and will not be a common sight in Vermont for some time. This is probably just as well. The musk ox, which likes to lick lichen from snow-covered rocks, should react well to New England grazing. But it is a little harder to tell just how New England will react to the musk...