; o s E 1894 ]
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
G en. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Ch a r . Cartilaginous, pale green. Stems cylindrical,
rough and leafy. Cups clubshaped, closed.
Tubercles marginal, globose, minute, crowded,
scarlet. Leaves imbricated, angular, crenate, minute.
Syn. Lichen bellidiflorus. Ach. Prod. 194.
Bseomyces bellidiflorus. Ach. Meth. 33 5 .
T h IS most elegant species was discovered last summer on
the high mountain of Ben Nevis in Scotland, by Mr. Turner
and Mr. W. J. Hooker. We had long ago received the same
from the coast of Labradore, and from Professor Acharius,
the only writer who has described it.
The crust is composed of numerous, small, lax, angular
leaves, crenate and acutely lobed, of a light bright green, not
grey or glaucous. Stems numerous, upright, various in height,
cylindrical, unbranched except at the summit, clothed with
small scaly foliage; the base slender, and more or less orange
or tawny. Cups swelling from a taper base upwards, shallow
or closed, their borders and segments crowded with innumerable,
small, globular tubercles, of a rich deep scarlet,
often not unaptly resembling the flower of a double red daisy.
It differs from the, not uncommon, L . cocciferus, in its
greater size and roughness, green not grey hue, smaller, more
clustered, and rather deeper-coloured tubercles, besides (according
to Acharius) affording different and far less valuable
colours in dyeing.---- This is an instance, among many others,
of the greater beauty and vigour of this tribe of plants, whether
species or individuals, in proportion to the cold and severity
of the climate to which they are exposed.