Word: lichen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...topography still resembles that of a shallow sea bottom, raised at the edges by a saucer-rim of mountains, with few barriers against wind or sun. The flat landscape is banded by four distinct regions-the icy northern shelf of the tundra, where nothing grows except moss, lichen and dwarf shrub; the dense forest zone, or the taiga, where arctic birches sprout beside palm trees; the steppe, a black earth meadowland which, when properly farmed, is among the most productive soils in the world; and farthest south, the deserts. In this overwhelming setting, Russia made its way much...
...strapped it on his wrist, impatient folk inclined to dismiss Berenson as a lucky hedonist. But he was really an ascetic in reverse who worked untiringly at sipping the ephemeral sweetness of things. His garden drew from him a typically overtrained, anxious and caressing response: he found the lichen "as gorgeous as an Aztec or Maya mosaic," and the moss "of a soft emerald that beds your eye as reposefully as the greens in a Giorgione or Bonifazio...
...prewar graces are gone. Over the pea-green waters of the 500-year-old, moss-and lichen-encrusted Imperial Moat, big-winged black butterflies flutter languidly. Within the Imperial Palace grounds (visited by 700,000 Japanese yearly) swarms of graceful scarlet dragonflies dip and glitter in the sunshine. In tiny rock gardens behind the bamboo walls of private homes, artificial fountains gurgle, and tiny bells tinkle to the slightest breeze. Traffic cops, sweating in their summer khakis, pause to admire carefully arranged clusters of chrysanthemums set in their dusty control stations, sip glasses of hot green tea to keep cool...
Once upon a time, Chicken-lichen went into the woods to look for meat, and an acorn fell upon her poor head, so she cried: "The sky is falling down!" She told Hen-len who told Cock-lock, who told Duck-luck, who told Drake-lake, who told Goose-loose, who told Gander-lander, who told Turkey-lurkey. And on their way to tell the King, they met Fox-lox, who offered to take them to the Palace. Instead, he ate them all up. Moral: Use Your Head, Else a Fox May Pluck Your Feathers...
...back to reality, as most of the science fiction writers seem to do, passions seem to run as high in space as in any pulp magazine: "There was a crooning, dangerous, hypnotic quality to the voice--and yet it was warm and sweet, like mrfii-honey flowing over the lichen rocks of Phobos. Mac Marty felt his pulse quicken." There are also adverse affects of mating on distant planets, but only villains are susceptible. "Lucia's baby was born. The baby came at night. It did not live more than a few hours. But it shone in the dark...