Volume 1 1 Number 3 



The Plant World 



^ magazine nf C&Jnrral TJntang 

 MARCH, 1908 



ASPECTS OF NEW ENGLAND LICHENS. 

 By R. Heber Howe, Junior. 



This curious bit from Thoreau's "Winter" I cannot 

 refrain from quoting at the outset of these papers, as it is 

 such an appreciative sketch of a delightful study — "when 

 I see the sulphur lichens on the rails, brightening with the 

 moisture, I feel like studying them again as a relisher and 

 tonic, to make life go down and digest well, as we use pepper 

 and vinegar and salads. They are a sort of winter green 

 which we gather and assimilate with our eyes. That's the 

 true use of the study of lichens. I expect thus the lichenist 

 will have the keenest relish for Nature in her every day mood 

 and dress. He will have the appetite of the worm that 

 never dies, of the grub. To study lichens is to get a 

 taste of earth and health, to go gnawing the rails and 

 rocks. This product of the bark is the essence of all tonics. 

 The lichenist extracts nutriment from the very crust of the 

 «arth. A taste for this study is an evidence of titanic health, 

 a rare earthiness. It makes not so much blood as soil of 

 life. It fits a man to deal with the barrenest and rockiest 

 experience. A little moisture, a fog, or rain, or melted 

 snow makes his wilderness to blossom like the rose." . . . 

 ■"A lichenist fattens when others starve. His poverty never 

 fails .... There is no such coUyrium or salve for 

 sore eyes as these brightening lichens on a moist day. Go 

 bathe and screen your eyes with them in the softened light 

 of the woods." 



It is my purpose to prepare, what may be termed, some 

 meager monographical papers on the more conspicuous 



