The branch of mycology that studies lichens is known as lichenology. Lichens are organisms which interact symbiotically with fungi. The study of lichen borrows from many studies of science, including mycology, phycology, microbiology, and botany. Lichenologists is the name of scientists studying lichenology. It has origins going back to the 18^th century, and has influenced many of the afore mentioned studies as much as it borrows from them.

While there is documentation from early times from people like Piliny the Elder or Theophrastus, the studies into lichen were not very deep. It wouldn't be until the 18^th century when the father of lichenology, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, would study them intensely and groped them into their own genus. He used the Latin term lichen, which was originally used by Theophrastus and carried on by Piliny but was not widely used.

The word lichen comes from the Greek word leichen which was a moss that came from the Greek verb liekho (to suck) because lichen could absorb water in great mass. The term was originally used for mosses, liverworts and lichens.

40 years after the works of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Dillenius would write a book Historia Muscorum. In it, he made the first divisions of the group created by Tournefort, which would create subfamilies Usnea, Coralloide, and Lichen, which was due to the morphological (shape, color, pattern, etc.) of lichen. Once this revolution in taxonomy, led by Linnaeus, created new systems in which to classify lichens. In the new system, Lichen would be divided into eight divisions according to how the lichens appeared, mainly the thallus of them. Thalli (plural of thallus) are vegetative tissue in lichen.

By the 20^th century there were many advances in lichenology, and in 1909 Konstatntin Mereschkowski would present the research paper "The Theory of two Plasms as the basis of Symbiogenesis, A new study on the Origin of Organisms. Within it, he explained a new theory of symbiogensis (when life was first created), and often times referenced his previous work Nature and Origin of Chromatophores in the Plant Kingdom". All of this contributes to the Theory of Endosymbiosis, which is an evolutionary theory that focuses on the origins of eukaryotic cells (organisms with membranes) and prokaryotic organisms (unicellular organisms that lack membranes).

Lichenology has been used to help advance pharmacology (medicine) in many ways, but it wouldn't be until the 20^th century when scientists would become interested in them. Various substances existed within lichen carry many antibacterial actions scientists would come to find. This would lead into many scientists studying mycology more in depth, as well as the worldwide implications of studying lichen growing every day. With more information into lichen, we will be able to help create new medicines as well as prolong the human race.

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