On a recent trip to Sunset Beach, I came across an old tree with thinning branches, draped with copper-green lace lichen. A few of the branches were broken, splintered on the ground, dotted with holes bored by insects.
The lichen doesn’t harm the tree’s living branches, but the dead branches give the lichen a place to thrive. Birds harvest the plant to make their nests.
As the dies it will slowly release its sap, sugars, and carbon back into the grove to support other creatures and plants. Even as it becomes little more than a skeleton, the tree goes on nurturing and giving life to those around it. When it finally collapses, it becomes a shelter and a home.
It doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.
