SPHÆROPHORON fragile.
Brittle Globe Lichen,
CRYPTOGAMIA Alga.
Gen. Char. Receptacles nearly globose, terminal, of
the substance of the frond. Seeds in a dense, black,
powdery ball.
Spec. C har. Frond densely tufted, brownish, brittle,
cylindrical, repeatedly forked, without lateral
branches.
Sstn. Sphaerophoron fragile. Ach. Meth. 135.
S. coralloides /3. Turn. £5? Borr. Lich. Bril. v. 1. 111.
Lichen fragilis. Linn. Sp. PI. 1621. FI. Suec.
ed. 2 . 425. Ehrh. Crypt. 128.
L. sterilis. Ach. Prod. 2 LI.
Coralloides fragile. Hoffm. PI. Lich. v. 2, 34. t. 33.
/ 3 . _ _ _ _ _
C'OMMUNIGATED by Mr. Turner from rocks in Scotland.
Being now satisfied of the necessity of separating this genus from
Lichen, we take this opportunity of giving its characters. Three
species only have been found in any part of the world. The
habit of them all is no less peculiar than their fructification;
shrubby, tufted, polished, more like a coral than a plant, the
upper branches elongated, and tipped with large, solitary, nearly
globose, balls, of their own substance, opening by an unequal
orifice at the top, and displaying a globose mass of black powdery
seeds, connected with a firm nucleus.
S. coralloides, Schrad. Spicil. 112, is our Lichen glohiferics,
1 .115, of which Mess. Turner and Borrer make the present a
variety. We have always been disposed to think it so; but its
regularly forked habit and uniform thickness, without those fine
lateral compound branches, seen in our <.115, added to the
opinion of Acharius, make us hesitate to unite them.
S. compressum, Ach. Meth. 135, L our L. fragilis, t. 114,
confounded with the present by Linnaeus, but differing from both
the above in its white colour, compressed stems, depressed re-!
ceptacles, and the black fibres intermixed with its seeds.