2658
V E R R U C A R I A laete-virens.
Bright-green Leafy Verrucaria.
CRYPTOGAMIA Lichenes.
Gen. Char. Tubercles of a different substance from
the thallus, simple, convex, not expanding, but
furnished with a central pore, and inclosing a
somewhat gelatinous nucleus.
S pec. Char. Scales leaf-like, thin, smooth, grass-
green, irregularly orbicular, with shallow rounded
lobes; underside white, appressed and fibrous
in the central part, free elevated and naked at
the edges. Tubercles . . . .
Syn. Endocarpon viride. Ach. Lick. Univ. 300.
Syn. 100.
T h e Endocarpon Thunbergii of Acharius having been
previously named Lichen viridis by the younger Linnaeus,
we cannot but prefer for the present species the trivial name
by which Mr. Turner communicated it to the Swedish
Lichenist, in whose works alone it. has hitherto been published.
It appears to have been noticed in the British
islands only, and here it is not of general occurrence. It
abounds on some of the Scottish mountains, chiefly on
Sphagnum, on which it grows also near Esher, Surrey,
and on Black Down, Sussex; the late Miss Hutchins and
Sir T. Gage gathered it in Ireland; and it is found on wet
parts of the sand-rocks in the neighbourhood of Tonbridge
Wells. The younger specimen here figured was from the
last-mentioned locality, the other from Ireland.
The scales seldom exceed J of an inch in width, and are
less than £ of a line in thickness, are sometimes scattered,
more usually crowded and often in some degree imbricated,
membranous rather than coriaceous, flexible and of a
somewhat gelatinous appearance when wet, shrinking a
little and becoming brittle in drying; at first orbicular,
regularly and deeply concave, and much like the scutella