6 y [ 8 1 0 ]
L I C H E N inquinans,
Sooty-knobbed Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
G e n . C h a r . Male, Scattered warts.
Female, fmooth fhields or tubercles, in which the
feeds are imbedded.
S p e c ; C h a r . Cruft white, granulated. Tubercles
a little prominent, round, flattifh, grayifh-black,
powdery, with a fmooth black edge.
T h i s moft certainly nondefcript Lichen is by 'no means
unfrequently to be met with on dead wood, as pales, gates, &c.;
but it feems to prefer fuch pieces as are placed horizontally.
Mr. Turner has found it near Yarmouth, Mr. Sowerby inEffex.
Probably many botanifts have neglected it as a fuppofed variety
of fanguinarius, a fpecies under which more than two or three
have been confounded.
In cruft indeed this is not very different from the genuine
fanguinarius, except in not being red within, but on the contrary
greenifh juft under the furface. The tubercles however,
which are copioufly produced, and fcattered irregularly over
the cruft, afford a character no lefs obvious than decifive, firft
obferved by Mr. Turner. On the flighted touch they ftain
the finger with a very fine black footy powder, which is dif—
charged by innumerable pores in their diflc, being probably
the feed. This diftinguifhes it from every other cruftaceous
Lichen with which we are acquainted. The fpharocephalus
indeed, v. 6. t. 414, has tubercles that produce a powder
mixed with fibres, and thofe tubercles ftand on long ftalks,
to which ours even in that refpedt betrays an affinity when its
tubercles are differed from the cruft,