News Coverage

It’s only fitting Henry Kock will be remembered with a new species of lichen.

Not only was the Sarnia native a renowned horticulturalist, his beard — a bushy mass of grey — looked oddly like the new species, known as the horsehair lichen, that he will be named after.

“At the time, I hadn’t paid much attention to what the lichen actually looked like, so I bought it sight unseen,” his widow Anne Hansen laughed Wednesday. “Then people said to me, ‘Oh my God, that lichen looks like Henry’s beard.'”

Hansen recently won the naming rights to one of two newly discovered lichen species in an online fundraising auction. Trevor Goward, curator of lichens at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia, donated the naming rights to support the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Goward was inspired to make the donation in part by a viewing of Google Maps.

“I was looking at this part of British Columbia and I saw it looked like a battlefield,” he said Friday. “We’ve gone so far with the logging here that the area is out of proportion. There’s very little old growth left and this (lichen) is a species that does best in an old growth forest.”

When Hansen, who has since moved to British Columbia, heard of the auction, she wasn’t initially motivated to buy the naming rights. Her attitude, however, changed when she heard a CBC interview with Goward.

She remembers the curator suggesting the auction may not be as popular as expected because society is not collectively interested in nature.

“When he said that, it really struck a deep chord in me,” Hansen said. “I just thought Henry’s whole life was dedicated to getting people interested in nature. He was always kind of battling the collective apathy towards nature, so it took me a few seconds to decide that I’m going to name that lichen after Henry.”

Kock, dubbed with the nickname Mr. Arboretum, worked at the University of Guelph for 20 years. He crisscrossed across southwestern Ontario, speaking about habitat restoration, plant propagation and shelterbelt agriculture.

The Sarnia native had an early love for nature. Growing up, his family ran Huronview Nurseries outside of Bright’s Grove.

While Goward had never met Kock, who died from complications of a brain tumor in 2005, he is pleased that a champion of the environment will be remembered in the new species name.

“I thought more likely we’d get some very wealthy person who has made a living accumulating money, but it didn’t work out that way,” Goward said. “It’s just ordinary people who have a very, very strong sense of how things should be and who have lost a loved one and want to see it recognized.”

The species of lichen will be called Bryoria kockiana.

“I just want to make everyone aware that I couldn’t be happier that this British Columbia lichen ended up named after a son of Sarnia,” Goward added.

Direct link to The Sarnia Obsever article:  https://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3415802

The first time they met, Anne Hansen and Henry Kock both showed up for a canoe trip wearing mismatched canvas sneakers.

“We like to be different, in a fun, whimsical kind of way,” said Hansen, an artist based in James Bay, who wears two long braids and colourful knits. Their shared love of the outdoors also helped bring the couple together, more than two decades ago.

The pair lived in Ontario, where Kock earned a reputation as a horticulturalist at the University of Guelph. In 2005, he died of brain cancer.

Last week, Hansen found a fitting way to memorialize her late husband. For $4,000, she bought  the scientific naming rights to a newly-discovered lichen.

The horsehair lichen – which Hansen says resembles Kock’s beard – will be known as Bryoria kockiana.

“He would be thrilled,” said Hansen, of how Kock would feel about his lichen legacy.

After more than a decade of exposure to pesticides during his young working life, Kock dedicated himself to organic gardening. Hansen believes his cancer was a result of these pesticides, many of which are now banned.

Lichenologist Trevor Goward recently discovered the species of lichen in the southern Interior. In fact, he discovered two new species and he donated one to the Ancient Forest Alliance and one to The Land Conservancy to be put toward a Name-that-Lichen auction, which closed Dec. 15.

The naming auctions are the first example of “taxonomic tithing,” meaning they raise money for their own conservation, according to Goward.

“I believe that future auctions of this kind will garner even more support as Canadians awaken to the honour of being linked, if only in name, to other living species that share this planet with us,” he said, in a release.

The Sulyma family purchased naming rights from The Land Conservancy for $17,900. Parmelia sulymae has been named in honour of Randy Sulyma, a biologist at the University of British Columbia who died tragically in January. The money will got toward a $350,000 campaign to purchase a land corridor between two pieces of Wells Grey Park in the southern Interior of B.C.

The Ancient Forest Alliance will use the money from Hansen’s winning bid to map and report on old-growth forest on Vancouver Island.

Link to Victoria News article:  https://www.bclocalnews.com/community/135945688.html

Thumbs Up To Oystercatcher Girl – a.k.a. Victoria artist Anne Hansen – for a winning $4,000 bid that will give her the right to name a new species of lichen discovered by University of B.C. researcher Trevor Goward, with proceeds to the Ancient Forest Alliance. Hansen will name Bryoria kockiana, after Hansen’s late husband, Henry Kock, a horticulturist and author. The Oystercatcher Girl name comes from her paintings; see them at oystercatchergirl.blogspot.com.

Link to Times Colonist article:  https://bit.ly/uae26Y

A newly discovered lichen resembling “tree beards” will carry the name of a late University of Guelph horticulturist, author and master gardener.

The new species of horsehair lichen will be called Bryoria kockiana for Henry Kock, former interpretive horticulturist at the U of G Arboretum and a leading authority on native woody plants. He died in 2005 of brain cancer. His wife, Anne Hansen, purchased the scientific naming rights to the lichen this week.

The new species was discovered in a British Columbia rainforest by lichenologist Trevor Goward. He organized an auction for naming rights for two of his recent finds to benefit two B.C. conservation groups.

“With Christmas coming, here’s a perfect opportunity to give something back to Canada,” he said, explaining why he created the online auction.

The auction closed Dec. 15. Proceeds from Kock’s newly named lichen will benefit the Ancient Rainforest Alliance, a Victoria-based group that helps protect old-growth forests.

Hansen said buying the naming rights was the perfect holiday gift.

“Many people go into debt in December for toys and gadgets that will soon be obsolete. Lichens have been around since ancient biological times. If we do something fast about climate change, lichens will be here far into the future,” she said.

“And I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the lichen looks like Henry’s beard,” said Hansen, who moved from Guelph to B.C. in 2007.

A combination of fungi and algae, lichen provide critical winter food for mountain caribou and black-tailed deer.

Goward said, “Without lichens, caribou and reindeer would soon disappear, and where would Santa Claus be then?”

“We couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate benefactor,” he said, adding that Kock’s “work as a conservationist really deserves to be recognized.”

Kock joined U of G in 1981. He led interpretive walks and educational programs at the Arboretum and spoke regularly to gardeners and naturalist groups. He helped organize U of G’s first Organic Agriculture Conference in 1982.

He established gene banks for rare plants and launched the province’s Elm Recovery Project. Kock received the Governor General’s Award for Forest Stewardship in 1998 and was named one of Canada’s most outstanding gardeners in 2004. His book, Growing Trees from Seed, was completed by botanist colleagues after his death.

Time is running out to have a treasured name live on in a lichen species. The contest to name two new species of lichen found in British Columbia’s rainforests closes December 15, so get brainstorming and start bidding.

The two species of lichens were discovered by researcher Trevor Goward who has donated his dibs on naming rights (which, under scientific protocol, usually go to the person who describes it). Instead, The Land Conservancy of British Columbia and the Ancient Forest Alliance are holding online auctions for the public to bid for the right to name the lichens. All proceeds will go to the two environmental groups. Goward refers to the auction of the naming rights as “taxonomic tithing,” and encourages other researchers to do the same.

Make a bid on the respective lichen species by visiting the websites of The Land Conservancy (1-877-485-2422) or the Ancient Forest Alliance (250-896-4007).

Link to original article:  https://www.beautifulbc.ca/blogs/2011/12/06/lichen-contest-closes-soon/