Dolly Parton has a lichen named after her, because of course she does.
Sadly, Japewiella dollypartoniana is named not because it emulates Dolly’s busty hooker aesthetic, but because it’s found in the same Appalachian mountain regions where she grew up. That said, it’s not entirely clear whether you’d find any at Dollywood, her eponymous theme park.
The lichen was first formally identified in 2015. “It is distinguished from other species of Japewia and Japewiella by its sorediate thallus and production of norstictic acid,” the identifying paper notes. You can add your own sorediate thallus joke here.
Anyway, this is what it looks like under a microscope. Any resemblance to an oatcake is totally coincidental, I’m sure.
While the image is only going to excite lichen experts, no-one’s going to complain about Dolly having a lichen named after her. Let’s celebrate with a lesser-known Dolly classic, the theme to her 1992 movie Straight Talk.
Dolly image: Wikimedia Commons
Lichen image: Castanea
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