L I C H E N Clernenti.
Clementine Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga;.
Gen. Char. Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
Spec. Char. Crust very mealy, with a membranous,
radiating, lobed and finely cut margin, of a whitish
unchangeable grey. Shields blueish black, with a
white, indexed, crenate border.
Syn, Parmelia Clementi. Turn. MSS.
TURNER has named this new Lichen in honour of ouf
common friend Don Simon de Roxas Clemente, who first
found it on olive trees'near Cadiz. Mr. Borrer finds the same,
not uncommonly, on trees and tiled roofs in Sussex, as well
as about'! unbridge wells and Southampton, and has long ago
favoured us with specimens.
It is a beautiful species when growing on an even surface,
forming roundish patches, about 2 inches or more in diameter,
of a light blueish grey, varying but little from moisture, very
powdery or mealy about the Central part, and often to the
very edges. The margin however is naturally membranous,
finely lobed and cut, smooth, white beneath, closely attached
to the bark or tile, while the powdery part is never lobed nor
divided. The shields are few and rare, about the central
region, at first concave, and almost covered with their indexed,
thin, crenate border, but at length somewhat larger, with a
black disk, clothed, especially when wet, with blueish hoariness.
Mr. Turner justly points out the affinity of this to L.slellaris,
t. 1697. We lament that our plate of the latter, from an
unpardonable blunder of the colourers, has a green hue never
seen in the plant itself, which has the silvery grey colour of
the present species, as was accurately expressed in Mr. Sowerby's
original drawing.