LICHEN acicularis.
Minute Pin-headed Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Crust leprous, powdery, pale greenish
ash-coloured. Tubercles nearly globose, tawny,
on shortish, cylindrical, upright stalks; disk
small, brown, powdery.
Syn. Lichen acicularis. Adi. Pradr. 85,
Calicium aciculare. Ach. Meth. 97.
-FOUND on the bark of old Scotch firs near Bury, by the
Rev. G. R. Leathes, and sent under the above name, determined
we believe by specimens from Acharius, but we are
not possessed of any such. His account of the species, however,
agrees sufficiently well, to leave little doubt on the subject.
As to his synonyms, we have no means of forming an
opinion, nor are they perhaps to be determined.
This is, as he says, “ one of the least of its tribe, differing
from L. capitatus, t. 1539, in having a paler-coloured crust,
shorter stalks, and the head not exactly globose. The whole
is besprinkled with tawny powder, except the base of the
stalk, which in the adult Lichen is naked, turning brownish.
Disk altogether imperceptible, like a little dot.” Our specimens
are perhaps further advanced than what Acharius saw;
having the tawny powder partly rubbed off, and the disk more
expanded, so as to show the brown seeds, which are all single
and unconnected.