> Biology textbooks tell us that lichens are alliances between two organisms—a fungus and an alga. They are wrong. [Toby Spribille] has shown that the largest

> Biology textbooks tell us that lichens are alliances between two organisms—a fungus and an alga. They are wrong. [Toby Spribille] has shown that the largest and most species-rich group of lichens are not alliances between two organisms, as every scientist since Schwendener has claimed. Instead, they’re alliances among three. All this time, a second type of fungus has been hiding in plain view.