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L I C H E N muscicola.
Gelatinous Moss Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algce.
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Gelatinous, tufted, olive black. Segments
cylindrical, branched, upright, level-topped,
bluntish, wavy and uneven. Shields nearly terminal,
horizontal, flattish, brown, with an entire
border.
Syn. Lichen muscicola. Ach. Prod. 215. Act. Holm,
fo r 1795. 12. t. 1. ƒ. 3. Swartz. Nov. Act. Ups.
v. 4. 248. Dicks. Crypt, fasc. 2. 23. t. 6. f . 9.
Bernhardt in Sckr-ad. Journ. fo r 1799. 22. t. 2.
ƒ. 8. M m . v. 4. 46. Hull. 306.
Parmelia muscicola. Ach.Meth. 244. Winch, v. 2. 59.
A l l our specimens of this curious Lichen have been
communicated by the Rev. Mr. Harriman from the county of
Durham, where it grows, running over mosses, on rocks and
stones; as well as in Scotland and Wales.
Its habit is in appearance that of the tribe called Cornicularia,
but it is now more justly reckoned by Acharius among the gelatinous
Lichens, or Collemata, which, though sunk in his
Parmelia, form as natural a genus by themselves as possible,
and we venture to think they may be defined by a technical
character, the gelatinous accessory margin of the shields, that
of the rest being coriaceous.
The frond of the present species is very peculiar, consisting
of innumerable tufted entangled and interbranching upright
compound fibres, all cylindrical, 'but rugged, bent and wavy
without any order or regularity, their ends bluntish, entire, or
notched; their substance rigid when dry, soft and gelatinous
when wet; their colour olive black. The excellent Bernhardi
has well remarked that the shields are often common to two or
three of the branches, a thing difficult to explain, except by
the tendency which these plants possess, in common with
Fungi, to unite their various growing parts when they come in
contact. These shields are tolerably abundant, small, horizontal,
when dry of the colour of the branches, when wet
lighter and browner, a little concave when young, the reverse
when old, with a thin smooth accessory border.