HERRE — THE GYEOPHORACEAE OF CALIFORNIA. 319 



9. Gyrophora polyrhiza Koerb. Par. Lich. 41. 1859. Plate 70, c. d. 

 Lichen polyrhizos L. Sp. PI. ed. 2. 1151. 1763. 



Gyrophora diabolica A. Zahlbr.; Herre, Proc. Washington Acad. Sci. 7: 366. 1906. 



Thallus email to medium, from one-leaved becoming many leaved and complicate; 

 more or leas orbicular, the edges torn or irregular; coriaceous, rigid, usually smooth 

 and polished; color a very dark rich brown, becoming olive when moist, the under 

 surface black, granulate, more or less covered with short, dense, black fibrils. 



Fertile plants infrequent; apothecia at first innate and very small, but finally 

 large, rounded or irregularly oblong, prominent and dome-like, reaching a diameter 

 of 8 mm., beautifully gyrose-plicate, black; spores simple, colorless, short-ellipsoid, 



5-7 

 7.5-13.5^' 



Abundant in the Santa Cruz Peninsula at Devils Canon, at an altitude of 600 to 

 690 meters; it occurs also sparingly at Castle Rock, altitude 900 meters, a few miles 

 southeast of Devils Canon. The plant is not rare on Mount Hamilton, altitude 

 3,270 meters, in the Inner Coast Range; according to Doctor Hasse it is abundant in 

 the Yosemite Valley. It probably occurs all over California, wherever the altitude 

 is over 900 meters. A few specimens were sent me from Rhett Lake, Modoc County, 

 by Mr. Harold Hannibal, and I have no doubt it extends into Oregon and Washington. 



I have compared my material with authentic fruiting material in the Imperial 

 Museum at Vienna, identified by Dr. Th. M. Fries, and with material in the British 

 Museum and in the Leighton Herbarium at Kew, collected and identified by the 

 same lichenologist. 



I do not know what else Miss Cummings may have collected at Wawona, Calif., 

 but the two packets of no. 244, Cummings, Williams & Seymour, Decades of North 

 American Lichens, in my possession, are both G. polyrhiza. 



This lichen is recorded from northern Europe and Asia, but is not given by Tucker- 

 man in any of his works. It has apparently been overlooked by both collectors and 

 authors in this country till discovered by me in California. In various herbaria I 

 have found a few specimens distributed under the name of rugifera or of muhlenbergii 

 var. alpina, from both of which it is sufficiently distinct. 



Explanation of Plate 70.— See page 317. 



10. Gyrophora hyperborea (Hoiim.) Ach. Meth. Lich. 105. 1803. Plate 71. 

 Umbilicaria hyperborea Hoffm. Deutschl. Fl. 111. 1796. 



Thallus medium-sized to small, mostly one-leaved, or sometimes somewhat several- 

 leaved, rather thin and parchment-like, few-lobed, with irregular, sometimes ragged 

 or lacerate margins; surface irregularly papulose-wrinkled, or more rarely nearly 

 smooth, often more or less perforate; color olive brown, chocolate, blackish, and 

 black; the under surface smooth, often slightly pitted, unevenly furrowed, blackish 

 to dark brown or paler, sometimes with a grayish cast; apoihecia small, fairly abun- 

 dant, at first minute and appressed, but eventually elevated, convex and plicate, 

 variously shaped but mostly circular; paraphyses short, slender, tortuous; asci short, 

 oblong to spatulate; thecium bluish greenish, then tawny and wine red with iodine; 



5 75—7 5 

 spores ellipsoid or ovoid, colorless or pale yellowish,— jjjqrj- p] according to Tuck- 



6-9 

 erman measuring t:>_|^/'- 



Californian specimens have been examined as follows: Bolander, exact region not 

 known; Prof. Clara Cummings, Truckee; Harold Hannibal, Rhett Lake, Modoc 

 County; numerous collections, valley of the Truckee River near the California- 

 Nevada lino, altitude 2,000 to 6,200 meters. It is also common about Reno, Nevada, 

 at 1,600 meters and above. It probably occurs generally throughout the mountains 

 about Lake Tahoe and northward . A specimen in the National Herbarium, identified 

 by Tuckerman, was collected in Oregon by E. Ball, 



