518 WILD FLOWERS OF 



difference in their fructification, will, when pointed 

 out, always abundantly distinguish them; and inde- 

 pendently of this, curiously enough, the lichen is 

 mostly grey or white, seldom green, while the moss is 

 almost always green, and scarely ever white, except in 

 the sphagnum, or bog-moss. The designation of the 

 tribe I am about to notice, is taken from the Greek 

 word leilcen, applied to scurfy substances, or signifying 

 a wart, which the fructification of many of the lichens 

 is thought to resemble, but it is rather similar to 

 minute saucers. In botanical language these saucers 

 are called apoihecia, while the plants that bear them 

 are said to have either a tkallus, crust, or frond. "With 

 better taste the expressive English term time-stains 

 has been bestowed upon the lichen tribe, from the 

 coloured hues which time's unimaginable touch 

 bestows upon rocks, precipices, towers, and old struc- 

 tures of every description, by the aid of these humid, 

 pulverulent, or filamentous structures. 



Maritime rocks are often resplendent with orange, 

 yellow, or burnt-sienna tints, from the various lichens 

 that there luxuriate in the damp sea-air; walls and 

 roofs are copiously blotched with large patches of 

 white or brilliant yellow, from their constantly extend- 

 ing growth ; and who has not in his rural ramble oft 

 gazed curiously at the old, broken, crusted, ragged, 

 and diversified tumble-down barn door, that in its 

 disjointed feebleness 



" Like rock or stone it is o'ergrown 

 With lichens to the very top." 



The ruins of castles and abbeys are, in like manner, 

 generally overspread with these coloured impressions 

 of the damp fingers of time; and they are enumerated 



