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CA L I CI U M chrysocephalum.
Gold-headed, Calicium.
y o
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
Gen. Char. Receptacles capitate, stalked, totally different
in substance and colour from the crust, with
a border of their own substance; disk powdery.
Spec. Char. Crust granulated, indeterminate, dispersed,
pale yellow. Receptacles on black stalks,
pear-shaped, yellow towards the border, with an
orange-brown disk.
Syn. Calicium chrysocephalum. Ach. Meth. suppl. 15.
Lichen chrysocephalus. Turn. Tr. o f Linn. Soc.
v. 7 . 88. t. 8 . ƒ . 1 .
T h is beautiful species, which places beyond all doubt the true
nature of the crust and fructification of its genus, was found by
Mr. Turner, its original describer, on old pales near Sotterley,
in Suffolk.
The crust generally grows in oblong patches, about four inches
in extent one way and two the other, of a bright, sometimes
greenish, yellow, very much resembling some common Lichens,
till it is submitted to a microscope, when it proves to consist of
globose granulations, crowded or dispersed, internally of a dull
buff-colour. These bear numerous little stalks, a line or more in
height, capillary, of a shining brownish black. Each supports
one, rarely two, pear-shaped flat-topped heads, black at their
base, bright yellow upwards, especially at the margin ; their disk
occupied with powder of a dull orange-colour. When old, and,
the powder or seed is gone, the receptacles remain hollow and
black, till they themselves break off and leave the naked stalks.
Mr. Turner occasionally met with some heads almost sessile, and
clustered together.