t y p
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
G en. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
S>pec. Char. Crust olive, thin, smooth, scattered, soon
disappearing. Shields scattered or crowded, olive-
black ; with a thick, elevated, blackish border, at
length rugged and contorted.
Svn. Lichen simplex. Davies Tr. o f Linn. Soc. v. 2.
2 8 3 . t. 2 8 . ƒ. 2. Ach. Prod. 7 8 . With. v. 4 . 5.
Hull. 2 8 5 .
Lecidea privigna. Ach. Meth. 4 9 . Winch v. 2 . 34.
F o u n d either on slate or on sandstone in various mountainous
parts of Britain. The crust is thin, smooth, dark
olive, soon breaking into small fragments and scaling off, except
round the fructification, where, for a time at least, it remains.
The shields are numerous, scattered or clustered as
it may happen, small, sessile but prominent, of a dark-
brownish black ; the disk palest, generally concave but sometimes
prominent; the border elevated, thick, blacker than
any other part, at first evep, but soon becoming wrinkled
and deformed, and in a more advanced state, as Mr. Davies
described it, the shields are altogether black.
We have drawn one of his original specimens on blue slate,
and one of Mr. Harriman’s from Durham on white sandstone.
Our worthy friend is not responsible for what others
piay have taken for his plant, nor for their erroneous opinions
concerning it. Prof. Acharius, in a letter to us, rightly proposes
to remove this species from his Lecidea to Parmelia.
We trust it cannot in future be misunderstood, nor is'there
any real approach in its shields to those proper to a Cyrophora.