JtfLf [ 1185 ]
LICHEN quadricolor.
Four-coloured Lichen.
CRYPTO GAM I A Algce.
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the seeds
are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Crust leprous, grey, with white granulations.
Young shields gelatinous, flesh-coloured, with
a white b o rd e r; old ones blackish.
Syn. Lichen quadricolor. Dicks. Crypt, fasc. 3. 15. t. 9.
f . 3. Achar. Prod. 73. JVith. v. 4. 24. Hull. 292.
L. decoloratus. Achar. Prod. 50.
L. granulosus. Ehrh. Crypt. 145.
Patellaria decolorans. Hoffm. PI. Lick. v. 2 . 54. t. 39.
ƒ• 2 . • .
F iR S T observed by Mr. Dickson on the Scottish mountains,
and since by Mr. D. Turner, at Lound, near Yarmouth, as
well as by the Rev. Mr. Harriman, at Eggleston, Durham. It
grows on the ground, in heathy sandy places, being in perfection
during the winter season.
The crust is thin and inseparable from the light crumbling
soil, of a grey or brownish hue, thickly sprinkled with minute
white granulations, which betray an affinity to the section
Psoroma rather than Patellaria, under which last Dr. Acha-
rius has ranged this species. The shields are small, tolerably
numerous, sessile, when moist remarkably gelatinous and
convex, in a dry state nearly flat. When young they are of
a yellowish flesh-colour, with a smooth narrow white border
; but by age both disk and border become of a brownish
black.
Some good botanists have confounded this with L. Icmado-
phila of Ehrhart. We know it to be his granulosus from a
comparison of specimens, and it is certainly Hoffman’s Patellaria
decolorans. Ehrhart’s name is not very expressive, and
has been neglected; in choosing between decoloratus and quadricolor,
we have preferred the latter; not, we hope, out of
undue partiality to our friend Mr. Dickson, but because it is
the oldest, and at least as good as the other. The granulosus
of his 4th fasciculus we believe to be a different plant.
J l S j
J u l y l. l&O A P u h ît fîte J l y J a * S<rtv,rby. Z<mdo