LICHEN athroocarpus.
Crowded Sunk-shielded Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts. > '
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Crust determinate,tessellated,pale brownish
olive, polished *> its fragments tumid and angular.
Shields sunk, black, flattish, crowded, with a narrow,
whitish, spurious border.
Syn. Lichen athroocarpus. Ach. Prod. 77.
Lecidea athroocarpa. Ach. Meth. 41.
COMMUNICATED by our often-mentioned friend, the
Jlev. Mr. Harriman, from Cronkley and other mountainous
places near Eggleston, Durham. We have compared it with
a specimen from Professor Acharius, with which, as well as
with his description, it precisely agrees.
I t grows on granite or schistose rocks. The crust is well
defined but not regularly circular; hard and uneven, not very
thick; white within; its surface of a pale brownish olive,
somewhat glossy, broken into innumerable angular fragments,
not at all level or of equal height, the surface of each fragment
being peculiarly tumid and angular. Shields small, angular,
deeply sunk, one or more in each fragment or wart of
the crust; their disk flat, or rather convex than concave, very
black, with a roughish aspect; their border scarcely of their
own substance, but of a spurious nature, proceeding merely
from the elevation of the crust, a little pale as if rubbed,
round each shield, very much like an Urceolaria, to which
genus if the shiefds were concave Dr. Acharius says he would
refer it. We presume to think it agrees better with that genus
than with Lecidea, and perhaps shows them not to be naturally
distinct. When old the shields become very convex, with
some appearance of a proper border.
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Dtc.i-t8o].Publi4h'd by J k f ’Stnrobu, le/iiLm.