Seeding Trees with Usnea

Usnea (Old Man's Beard) lichen is so medicinal.  Last fall, I happened upon tons of little clumps on some wood chips at a park.

I stored them in an open Ziploc bag with some moisture for a couple days.  Then I took each clump, found the little piece of bark that had been its attachment point, and tucked it under cracks in the bark of 3 crabapple trees that had no usnea but which had a moss and another 2 lichen species.  Now, this spring, I've seen usnea in little clumps all through those trees, even in spots where I hadn't tucked it in!!  It's as if one or two of the 3 parts that makes a lichen was already in the tree, and the usnea brought in the missing part(s)!

I'm going to do it again, because I pruned those trees and now I think they'll let too much light in.  Plus a lot of Usnea came out on the prunings.  :(