'
C A T A L O G U E
BRITI SH LICHENS.
Family I . EPHEBACEI Nyl. Flora, 1879, p. 223.
Thallus frutioulose, granulose, rarely subsquamulose, slightly
turgid and gelatinous when moist, dark in colour, cellular in
tex tu re (without any medullary filaments), cells m in u te ; gonimia
somewhat large, gonidioid, tunicatod, subglohose, glaucous, variously
arranged, not moniliform. Apotheoia biatorine, lecideine, lecanoriue
or pyrenoearpous ; paraphyses various, sometimes wanting ; spores
8næ, rarely numerous, usually ellipsoid or suboblong, simjjle, rarely
1 -septato, colourless. Spermogones immersed in the thallus or
enclosed in thalline tubercules, ste rigm a ta generally simple or
simplish, spermatia usually very minute, oblong.
Nylander, in originally distinguishing this family in Flora 1875 p 103
named it Bijssacei Fr, ; but as the .old genus Èyssus in the Michelian
acceptation referred to C/iroolepa, which have gonidic thalli, this has
been named Lpheoacei.
The family (the diagnosis of which I owe to Nylander) is well characterized
by the absence of medullary filaments, and by the nature of
the gonimia,, which are tunicated or involved in a gelatinous cellular
stratum On the tunic being ruptured, the gonimia, each of which has
a very thm parietal membrane (more especially visible when suffu.sed
with ammonia Nyl. Pyr. Or. p. 48), become free. Various genera recently
separated from Algæ belong to this family ; and no doubt, with
further knowledge, others will be transferred to it.
Tribe I . S IEOS I P H B I Nyl. ex Stiz. St. Gall. Nat. Ges.
(1876), p. 192 ; cfr. Cromb. Grevillea, v. p. 76.
Thallus minute, byssoid, fllamentoso-frutioulose, gonimia (siro-
gonimia) tunioated, variously connate ; medullary filaments none
Apotheoia minute, biatorine or lecideine; paraphyses thickish or
slender ; spores 8næ, ellipsoid, simple or ra rely 1 -septate, colourless.
Spermogones innate ; sterigmata simple, ra rely articulate.
The various genera composing this tribe (of w-hich Nylander has supplied
the diagnosis) consist of minute algoid plants, whose true r t
lations have for the most part, until recently, been but little understood
In addition to those here described there are others which, occurrinff
only in a sterile or imperfectly developed condition, do not admit of a
c