changed by moisture ; underside without fibres, rugged,
sometimes white towards the edges of the patch, but usually
tinged there with flesh-colour, and dark brown in the
central parts. Scutella; numerous all over the patch except
the edges, bursting from the disk of the segments, soon
losing the circular figure, becoming first crenate, then irregularly
and deeply lobed, and acquiring the width of a line
or two, much exceeding that of the segment of the thallus
from which they spring, and which then rises into a sort of
stalk beneath them : disk flat or irregularly convex or concave,
according to the flexure of the cup ; when wet nearly
of the same hue as the thallus, or pale with a livid tinge ;
when dry, straw-yellow, becoming darker and browner by-
long keeping; margin persistent, slightly raised, narrow,
indexed. The substance of the disk is thin, and often falls
out, (or is perhaps devoured by insects,) the cup then assuming
the appearance of a rounded sinuated portion of
thallus, with raised indexed edges, from which other scu-
tellae sometimes burst forth.
The generic arrangement of Lichens is as yet in a very
unsettled state, but this is obviously a Parmelia according
to the Gen. char, adopted above. Its nearest British affinity
is Lecanora saxicola ofAcharius, figured in Engl. Bot.
t. 1695. It was first called cartilagineus in a chemical paper
by Westring in Nov. Act. Stockh. for 1791, under the
mistaken idea that it was Lichen cartilagineus ofLightfoot,
which is Lichen crassus of Hudson, and Engl. Bot. t. 1893.
—W . B.