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The two organisms, fungus and alga, that enter into the composition of the lichen plant are each characterized by the simplicity of their original structure in which there is little or no differentiation into tissues. The gonidia-forming algae are many of them unicellular, and increase mainly by division or by sporulation into daughter-cells which become rounded off and repeat the life of the mother-cell; others, belonging to different genera, are filaments, mostly of single cell-rows, with apical growth. The hyphal elements of the lichen are derived from fungi in which the vegetative body is composed of branching filaments, a character which persists in the lichen thallus.

The union of the two symbionts has stimulated both, but more especially the fungus, to new developments of vegetative form, in which the fungus, as the predominant partner, provides the framework of the lichen plant-body. Varied structures have been evolved in order to secure life conditions favourable to both constituents, though more especially to the alga; and as the close association of the assimilating and growing tissues is maintained, the thallus thus formed is capable of indefinite increase.