THE GYROPHORACEAE OF CALIFORNIA. 



By Albert W. C. T. Herre. 



The Gyrophoraceae, an extremely natural group of lichens, 

 include three genera, two of which, Gyrophora and Umbilicaria, are 

 represented in the western part of North America. The family is 

 essentially boreal and alpine. 



Seventeen species and five subspecies are reported from North 

 America under the name of Umbilicaria by Tuckerman, in his 

 Synopsis of North American Lichens. a Of the entire twenty-two 

 forms he reports but six from California, two species and one 

 subspecies being reported only from Californian or Pacific coast 

 localities. 



I am not informed how many species belonging to this family are 

 now known to occur in North America, but the number is probably 

 about twenty-five. According to the observations of Doctor Hasse 

 and myself, ten species are now certainly known from California, 

 while there are three more represented on the Pacific slope in the 

 collections I have examined. 



When one considers the great diversity of Californian topography 

 and the consequent climatic diversity, this is a comparatively poor 

 showing. Of course the Umbilicarias characteristic of the South- 

 ern Appalacliians (caroliniana, pennsylvanica, etc.), can hardly be 

 expected here. But we may confidently look for the occurrence in 

 California of nearly all the alpine or arctic (jtyrophoras reported 

 from other parts of North America, when the higher peaks of the 

 Sierras have been more carefully explored. Accordingly I have 

 included in this paper all the members of this family now known to 

 occur in the western third of the continent. 



Several representatives of this group are very striking in appear- 

 ance, attracting the attention of the general botanist and of the 

 trapper or mountaineer as well as that of the specialist, while their 

 adaptations to great extremes of heat and cold render them of con- 

 siderable interest to the plant physiologist. While they are of no 

 economic importance in this country, GyropTiora esculenta Miyoshi, a 

 Japanese species, is prepared for human food, and in the Arctic regions 



a Parti, 1882. 



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