CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
G en. C har. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
S pec. C har. Cartilaginous, brittle, ash-coloured. Stems
cylindrical, rough and leafy. Cups turbinate, closed;
at length dilated and radiated. Tubercles marginal,
sessile or stalked, brownish-black. Leaves imbricated,
crenate, minute.
S vn. Lichen pyxidatus o. Huds. 5 5 4 -.
Baeomyces anomaeus. Ach. Meth. 349.
Coralloides parum ramosum, tuberculis fuscis. Dill.
Muse. 97. t. 15. f 20.
D lL L EN IU S gathered this on Woolwich heath. We found
it on the Pentland hills near Edinburgh in 1782, and determined
his synonym, but it is not to be found in Lightfoot.
Mr. D. Turner took the specimens in our plate from the old
thatch of Mr. Crowe’s barn at Lakenham, in March 1805.
This is one of the most inelegant and disorderly of the cup
Lichens, as well as the most brittle. Its predominant hue is
ash-colour variegated with brown. The leafy crust is finely
divided and crenate, white beneath; and not only the base,
but mostly the stems and cups are clothed with similar foliage.
Sometimes the stems are more naked, but always rough*
They are generally simple, occasionally divided, terminating
in rather imperfect cups, which are closed when young, then
dilated and radiant, more or less overgrown with leaves. The
tubercles are dark brown, almost black, either sessile among
leaves on the edge of the cup, as in our figure, or raised on
short irregular stalks, as in that of Dillenius.
This species is most nearly related to L. alcicornis, t. 1392,
and but for the great authorities of Dillenius and Acharius,
we should scarcely have thought it more than a variety.