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L I C H E N rubiformis.
Raspberry-fruited Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga;.
G en. C h a r . Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Fronds depressed, somewhat crustaceous,
rounded, lobed, crenate, light green; thickened
and pale at the margin; white beneath. Tubercles
on the disk, clustered, sessile, minute, globose,
hollow, red.
Syn. Baeomyces rubiformis. Ach. Meth. 324. t. 7.ƒ. S.
W e l l might even the experienced Dr. Acharius hesitate
how to dispose of this singular production, which his friend
Wahlenberg brought him from the north of Norway, and of
which I received a solitary specimen long ago from my lamented
correspondent Mr. W. Brunlon, who found it near Nippon,
Yorkshire. We can hardly render a more acceptable service
to the curious cryptogamist, than to give an accurate figure
and dissection of it, which Mr. J. D. Sowerby has carefully
made, under my inspection, and which seems more perfect
than what Acharius has drawn. Of the identity of the two
plants we presume no doubt can arise.
The fronds grow on turfy earth, and exactly resemble those
of the generality of BcBomyces, or Cup Lichens. They make
a patch about an inch wide. Each is rounded, bluntly lobed,
thick-edged, and crenate, of a pale rather glaucous green
above; white beneath. The fructification, as we presume it
to be, consists of numerous little globose or ovate bodies, of
a fine red, generally clustered, sometimes dispersed, certainly
originating from the disk of the leaf. They are hollow and
seem spongy or powdery within, with an open thick-edged
mouth at thé summit. They are surely not parasitical fungi,
but can they be of the nature of galls? If the latter, it is remarkable
that no sign of the proper cup-shaped fructification
of a Bceomyces, should be present, as the fronds of this tribe
seldom occur without some.
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