of a Parmelia; soon flatter, sinuated, and at length lobed;
the lobes variously waved, rounded, or occasionally slightly
angular, or in rare instances almost linear, mostly entire,
sometimes again more or less deeply sinuated. The upper
surface is smooth, not polished, of a pleasant grass-green,
often yellowish in young fronds, changing in drying to a
greyish olive green sometimes tinged with brown, but
quickly resuming, unless long dried, the original hue when
moistened : when highly magnified, particularly in a dry
state, it is seen to be minutely mottled or dotted with grey.
Underside pale when wet, very white when dry; naked,
smooth and even at the edges, which are indexed in young
and often in old specimens; but in the latter, although
usually more or less raised, sometimes even slightly reflexed
: every other part of the frond is closely attached
by a white cottony substance, apparently of the nature of
radicles. Internal substance green, except a narrow white
layer at the base. Tubercles unknown. Minute, blackish,
elevated, somewhat gelatinous dots, of a parasitical appearance,
are often scattered on the surface of the thallus.
Acharius has expressed a suspicion that this species is
but the primordial leaves of a Cenomyce; yet in the ap-
pressed mode of growth, and in the manner in which the
scales are attached to the substance on which they grow, it
agrees with other leafy Verrucarice, and we would assign
it a place in the genus between V. psoromoides and V.pul-
chella. In the substance of the thallus, and the cup-like
figure whilst young, it approaches the last-named species ;
but it most resembles V. psoromoides in general aspect, the
lobes being often of a similar figure, and the colour almost
the same when dry, although brighter when wet. The
young fronds, however, of that plant are never so cup-like
nor so conspicuously edged with white, and the old fronds
are more imbricated, and the underside is black except at
the edges, which are not smooth but downy. If young
fronds of V. squamulosa are often much like those of
V. Icete-virens, their edges are rarely so much indexed, or of
60 pure a white, and their thicker substance, their duller
hue, and the dark colour of the substance which attaches
them to the soil, sufficiently distinguish them. In the later
stages the two plants very little resemble each other.—
W. B.