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L I C H E N speciosus.
Elegant Garland Lichen.
CRYPTOGAMIA Algae.
G en. Ch a r . Male, scattered warts.
Female, smooth shields or tubercles, in which the
seeds are imbedded.
S pec. Ch a r . Imbricated, radiated, somewhat cartilaginous,
greenish white ; snow-white with grey fibres
beneath; its segments linear, slightly fringed, obtuse
and powdery at the extremities. Shields
brown, with a white, notched or leafy, border.
Syn. Lichen speciosus. Wulfen in Jacq. Coll. v. 3 . 119.
t. 7 . Ach. Prod. 1 2 3 .
Parmelia speciosa. Ach. Melh. 193.
F e w botanists are acquainted with this Lichen, nor could
we, m the difficult tribe to which it belongs, have been certain
or it but for authentic German specimens, which Mr. Turner
has compared with those discovered by himself and Mr.
W ’ J. Hooker at Ballacheulish, in North Britain, near Fort
William, one of which is drawn in our plate. The fructification
however, being extremely rare, and never yet met with in
Britain, we have been obliged to supply from a North American
specimen, communicated long ago by our ever respected
and lamented friend Mr. Forsyth. 1
The fronds spread among moss, and are loosely imbricated,
depressed, deeply cut into linear, many-cleft, radiating
segments, whose dilated very obtuse extremities are powdery.
Upper surface smooth, tolerably even, light greenish
or glaucous, (we have never seen it so green as in Wulfen’s
figure), blueish-white when dry; under surface of the
lobes pure white, with a few grey or black fibres, the more
central under part clothed with dense black radicles. The
margin is slightly or occasionally fringed. Shields sessile,
rather convex, brown; their border of the substance and
colour of the frond, indexed, crenate, at length encircled with
an elegant series of leaves like a garland, as in L . Burgessii,
Feb l iS o g P ublish'd Im Jo-* Sowerby -London
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