[ 2013 ]
) i t f
L I C H E N tephroides,
Ash-coloured D o t Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae,
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Frond crustaceous, depressed, glaucous-
ashcoloured, smooth ; the circumference wavy and
somewhat lobed. Tubercles in immersed coal-black
dots, with prominent margins.
Syn. Lichen tephroides- Ach. Prod. 1 8 ,
Endocarpon tephroides. Ach. Meth. 129.
O N E of the new acquisitions of our friends Messrs Borrer
and Hooker in their Scottish tour of last summer'. It was
found on the ground at Burgh Head, in the island of Stronsa,
one of the Orkneys.
The fronds grow many together on the black turfy soil to
which they are closely attached, assuming a tessellated appearance.
Each is a quarter oi an inch, or more, in breadth,
of a glaucous pale ashcolour throughout; the margin wavy,
rounded or lobed; the surface'smooth and even, besprinkled
with numerous very black dots, each of which lodges a minute'black
immersed concave tubercle, as in other species of
Endocarpon.
The learned Professor Acharius originally made this one
df his VerrucaricB, and it confirms an idea we have long had,
that Verrucaria and Endocarpon are by their fructification
one genus ; nor is the habit of their most'extreme; species so
different as that of the various Acharian Parmelice.
2011