The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lichen \Li"chen\ (l[imac]"k[e^]n; 277), n. [L., fr. Gr. leichh`n.]
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(Bot.) One of a class of cellular, flowerless plants, (technically called Lichenes), having no distinction of leaf and stem, usually of scaly, expanded, frond-like forms, but sometimes erect or pendulous and variously branched. They derive their nourishment from the air, and generate by means of spores. The species are very widely distributed, and form irregular spots or patches, usually of a greenish or yellowish color, upon rocks, trees, and various bodies, to which they adhere with great tenacity. They are often improperly called rock moss or tree moss.
Note: A favorite modern theory of lichens (called after its inventor the Schwendener hypothesis), is that they are not autonomous plants, but that they consist of ascigerous fungi, parasitic on alg[ae]. Each lichen is composed of white filaments and green, or greenish, rounded cells, and it is argued that the two are of different nature, the one living at the expense of the other. See Hyph[ae], and Gonidia.
(Med.) A name given to several varieties of skin disease, esp. to one characterized by the eruption of small, conical or flat, reddish pimples, which, if unchecked, tend to spread and produce great and even fatal exhaustion.
Usage examples of "tree moss".
He accumulated a carton of corn flakes with very pukey dehydrated peach slices in the box, a can of pink applesauce that resembled tree moss from fairyland, and a package of kosher hot dogs.
A deep breath filled his nostrils with myriad scents - earth and trees, the perfume of wildflowers, the stink of a rotting carcass, the heavy smell of damp tree moss.
The younger Fraser's shaggy black hair had come loose from its lacing, and hung like tree moss about his face.
Of course Jake couldn't see the knife now, since they were sitting in absolute total darkness under a tree in the jungle, but Flap had borrowed his lighter and gone looking for tree moss.
Both holes were plugged with tree moss, but blood was still oozing.
There they had sealed the weeping stump with boiling tar and dressed the wound in his side with tree moss.
Perhaps I should have shown up as the burning tree moss after all.
White men couldn't have grown sagebrush or tree moss in the places they've beautified.