Cultivators: Aino Henssen

Aino Henssen (1925-2011) was a globally recognized lichenologist. Her interest in the organism advanced the study and understanding of lichen and actinomycete taxonomy. She wrote over 100 papers on lichen and had several named after her. 

For Further Reading: 

• A tribute to Aino Marjatta Henssen (1925-2011)
• Huntia: A Journal of Botanical HistoryAino Henssen

This month, we’re talking about cultivators — women who nurtured, cross-pollinated, experimented, or went to great lengths to better understand and protect the natural world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Adrian Bain, a producer at Wondermedia Network. I'm so
excited to be guest hosting this episode of Womanica. This month,
we're talking about cultivators, women who nurtured, cross pollinated, experimented,
or went to great lengths to better understand and protect

(00:27):
the natural world.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
A woman gets close to a tree branch.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
She analyzes the bark and notices where its pattern begins
to shift.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
The sun is hot on her back.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
She is surrounded by low level palm trees and wears
a white bucket hat, t shirt.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
And hiking boots.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thousands of miles from her cold homeland, she stands in
the sun of the tropical world and finds what.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
She's looking for.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
She reaches into her side bag and pulls out a
hammer and chisel. She gently places the chisel on the
branch and softly hammers away until she has peeled off
a perfect specimen. Today's Womanniquin was obsessed with lichen, so
much so that she became the first international expert on

(01:26):
this symbiotic organism.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Please welcome. I Know Henson.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I Know was born on April twelfth, nineteen twenty five,
in a small town in western Germany, but grew up
in Berlin.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
She was the middle of three children.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Her father was a German scientist and her mother was
finish and I know became fluent in both languages. Her
youth was a dark time. It was spent under the
cloud of the Nazi regime and her older brother was
killed during the war. Her younger sister died young as well.

(02:08):
When the bombs stopped falling over Germany, her family moved
to a small university town, Marburg. They moved into a
large shared apartment at Bigenstrasse fifty two inu stayed local
and studied biology at the Phillips University. After eight years

(02:29):
of school, she graduated with her doctorate in nineteen fifty three.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
For her PhD, she.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Studied how the aquatic plant duckweed, which looks like a
floating moss that covers a pond, hibernated. Then she worked
at the Institute of Bacteriology at the Federal Biological Institute
for Agronomy and Forestry. Her focus was on specific kinds
of Actinomycetes, a microorganism that helps decompose manure. It wasn't

(03:03):
until a trip north that her interests evolved on a
collaboration with the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki.
She went on a field expedition with their team to
collect lichen and liverwartz. Exploring these dense northern forests, I
know became enamored with liichan. Unlike a sunflower or a

(03:28):
tall ostrich fern, lichan prefer to blend in and cover
an object stay still enough, and lichen can cover any tree,
cliff side or tombstone.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
They are a bit.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Of an oddity in the plant world, and that's to
say that they aren't plants at all. Liichan are one
part algae and one part fungus. Standing in the woods,
I know took a closer look at these crunchy organisms
and wanted to know everything about them. She learned how

(04:03):
to collect lichen with a hammer and chisel, edging the
chisel under the lobe of the lichen and softly hammering
it until it peels off. From here on out, those
tools were always within arm's reach. With her horizons expanded,
she propagated new ideas for her research program. In nineteen

(04:28):
seventy she became associate professor for thalophyte studies that means
simple plants like Lichen in Marburg. She held that position
for the next twenty years. One of her main focuses
was studying Lichen's evolution and diversity. Her novel experiments helped

(04:50):
improve classification. In nineteen seventy four, she co authored a
textbook on Lichen with.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
A former PhD student.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
It honed in on the taxonomy between likenized fungi and
non likeanized fungi. The textbook was unmatched in its influence
and helped advance the field. I know students always looked
forward to her Saturday morning field trips. She guided them

(05:19):
through the German woods as she carried a large basket
filled with tools. The summer mornings were spent studying higher
plants like ferns, conifers, and flowers. In the winter, they
looked down at the ground and around boulders, analyzing moss, liverwarts,
and of course Lichen. Both students and colleagues claimed that

(05:44):
one afternoon with Io was all it took to get
anyone excited about this bristly organism. It was often said
that her passion for Lichen was so intense she was
never able to keep her hour long legures focused on
what they were advertised as one fact on lichen always

(06:06):
led to another, but everyone seemed to enjoy her enthusiasm.
Her students and fellow professors remember her as a jovial woman,
kind and big hearted. When I Know wasn't in the
classroom lecturing, she was traveling the world. She applied for

(06:27):
scholarships that funded her work and took her around Europe
and North America and as far off as South Africa, Australia,
and New Zealand. With each trip she returned with containers
filled with more specimens. These global excursions catapulted her career
and she became one of the foremost international experts on lichen.

(06:54):
For her entire career, Iino lived in the same apartment
at Beigenstrasse fifty two, which was slowly encroached upon with
her private collection of Lichen books and research. She often
had students and co workers over for dinner, with smells
of finished recipes wafting through their home. The ingredients were

(07:17):
often made from foraging expeditions she took with friends and family.
When she visited Finland, colleagues and students would have deep
conversations with her over wild berry cake or pickled mushrooms.
When Ino turned sixty five, she was given a Feststrift,

(07:38):
an academic book published in her honor, and eleven species
of leichen were named after her. Over the years, Aino
published one hundred and thirteen articles, papers, or book chapters
on liichan. Even after she retired, she conducted experiments in
her apartment and continued to publish more papers. She carried

(08:02):
a youthful energy with her into her old age. In
her lifetime, she advanced to the field of lichnology and
was a globally recognized expert unlichen and actinomici taxonomy. She
fell ill in her later years. Her days of musing

(08:22):
through the forests collecting specimens were over. She donated her
collection of journals, microscope slides, photos, and most importantly, over
forty thousand specimens.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
She died in twenty eleven. She was eighty six years old.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
I know was buried next to her mother's grave, which
rests under the shade of a birch tree that I
know had planted forty years prior, and birch trees are
often covered in a min t green lichen. All month
we're talking about cultivators. For more information, find us on

(09:09):
Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special thanks to co
creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for letting me guest host
this episode. As always, we're taking a break for the weekend.
Talk to you on Monday.