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Herbarium — Part 2

Umbilicaria Dillenii, Tuckerm.

Habit and habitat.-On rocks.

Vegetative organs (thallus).-Leaf-like, leathery, the largest species known; brownish-green above, smooth and even; intensely black below with crowded, short fibrils, attached only at one point.

Fruiting organs (apothecia).-Orbicular, convex, attached only at the centre, the disk ridged concentrically.

Name.-Named in honour of the great botanist Dillenius.

Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii, (Ach.) Tuckerm.-See Colour Plate XI.

Habit and habitat.-On rocks.

Vegetative organs (thallus).-Large, leathery to rigid, irregularly pitted; olive-brown above, darker below.

Fruiting organs (apothecia).-Oblong and appressed, passing into irregular, often star-like plaited clusters without a common margin.

Name.-The specific name was given in honour of a Henry H. Muhlenberg.

Genus PELTIGERA, (Willd.) Fee.

The Crescent-shield Lichen. The vegetative portion (thallus) of the Genus Peltigera is leafy and often large; it is veiny and rough, hairy beneath; the algal layer is blue-green, excepting in two species (venosa and aphthosa).

The generic name Sticta from the Greek, dappled, refers to the strikingly spotted appearance of some species.

The spores are spindle or needle-shaped with 2 to 4 cross-walls; they are reddish or colourless; they vary but slightly in the different species.

Sticta pulmonaria (L.), Ach.-See Colour Plate VII; also Plate VII.

Habit and habitat.-On rocks and trees.

Vegetative organs (thallus).-Leaf-like, leathery; tawny or olive, loosely attached to the surface on which it grows, lobes large, entire, with rounded sinuses; upper surface netted and deeply pitted; under surface pale to white with rounded prominences outlined with slender hairs. Often bordered with little white grains (soredia).

Fruiting organs (apothecia).-Not very common sessile on the margin of the lobes.

Name.-The specific name pulmonaria, lung, refers to the resemblance the under surface has to the surface of a lung.

Sticta amplissima, (Scop.) Mass.-See Colour Plate VII.

Habit and habitat.--On fallen trunks and trees.

Vegetative organs (thallus). Extending over quite large areas, in an ever-widening circle appressed to the surface on which it grows; leathery, smooth, becoming wrinkled with age; ashen-green above; tawny, and covered with short, soft hairs (villous) beneath; the lobes elongated, wide, usually compacted, or narrow and repeatedly lobed.

Fruiting organs (apothecia).-Scattered, sometimes quite large, the disk chestnut; the margin entire and inflexed.

Name.-The specific name amplissima, the Latin for "very extensive," refers to its habit of growth.

Genus STEREOCAULON, Schreb.

The vegetative organ or thallus is two-fold, consisting or a scale-like (squamulose) or granulose, horizontal growth which usually disappears, and a vertical growth which becomes shrub-like, with fruit-bearing branches (podetia). The podetia are solid and clothed more or less with a white powder (soredia) and with granules (phyllocladia) which become scale-like or pass into coral-like branchlets.

The fruiting organs (apothecia) are at first little disks soon becoming convex; solid, terminal, or lateral; dark-brown, or black.

The generic name Stereocaulon is compounded of the Greek, solid, and, a stalk.

When dry these lichens are very brittle, but when moist they may be handled freely.

Stereocaulon paschale, (L.)-See Plate VIII.

Habitat.--On rocks.

Vegetative organs (thallus).--Primary, usually wanting. Secondary, growing in round thick mats; podetia long and slender, much branched and covered with scale-like (squamulose), crenate, dark-gray granules and inconspicuous cottony fibres.

Fruiting organs (apothecia).--At or near the apicus of the podetia, small, with disk convex dark-brown.

Name.-The specific name paschale is the Latin for "Passover." Its significance is not evident.

Note:--S. paschale is closely related to S. tomentosum which is as its name implies conspicuously covered with cottony fibres.

Genus CLADONIA, Hoffm.

The horizontal thallus of the Genus Cladonia is scale-like, rarely granulose; and may or may not persist.

The fruiting branches (podetia) are hollow, sometimes opening to the exterior; leathery, cup-shaped, or funnel-shaped; sometimes shrub-like, and very much branched; rarely club-shaped.

The fruiting organs (apothecia) are usually little heads (cephaloid) hollow within, they are variously coloured, but never black. The spores are ovoid-oblong; simple; colourless.

The generic name Cladonia from the Greek, a branch, was given by Georg Franz Hoffman to describe the characteristic habit of growth.

Brown-fruited Cup Cladonia, Cladonia pyxidata (L.) Fr.--See Colour Plate XII.

Habit and habitat.--On stumps and on the earth.

Vegetative organs (thallus).--Primary, thallus scale-like and variously lobed. Fruit-bearing branches (podetia) hollow, 5 to 25 mm. tall, top-shaped, short-stalked, granulose, warty or scurfy; margin spreading, bearing sessile or stalked apothecia.

Fruiting organs (apothecia).--Brown.

Name.--The specific name pyxidata, suggested by the podetia, is derived from the Greek, a small box.

The Fringed Cladonia, Cladonia fimbriata, (L.) Fr.--See Plate IX.

Habitat.--Earth, stumps, etc.

Vegetative organs (thallus).--The primary commonly persistent as little scales variously incised on the margin, sea-green above, olive to white or dusky below; often powdery (sorediate).

Fruiting organs (apothecia).--Brown, sometimes on tooth-like projections of the goblet-shaped podetia.

Fruit-bearing branches (podetia).--Hollow, 1 to 3 cm. tall, goblet-shaped, rather long-stalked and slender; the margin erect, often with tooth-like projections sometimes bearing fruits (apothecia); surface (cortex) disintegrating into a fine white powder.