LICHENS. 2 1 9 



been capable of great things in the times of winter floods, 

 for its waters had scooped a perfect circus in the limestone 

 rock, several yards across, and twenty feet in depth. 

 Now the water oozes and trickles over the summit, and 

 through the crevices, but the masses of stone lying in the 

 bed revealed the force with which its waters could rush 

 when snows are melting, or December rains falling. 



It was in one of the crevices, sparkling with the spray of 

 a neighbouring rivulet, that I espied the full green fronds 

 and hollow black apothecise of the Green Socket lichen, 

 and I enjoyed the refreshing meal which my friends were 

 preparing, and the welcome shade of the brook's own 

 drawing room all the more for the treasure that I 

 had secreted in my basket. The Cudbear, and Crab's 

 Eye were there too, and some of the Squamarias and 

 Parmelias, and Apple moss and Feather mosses in abun- 

 dance, and Wall-rue, Black-stalked Spleenwort, and Downy 

 Hawkweed, but none had any charm in my eyes com- 

 pared with that of the Green Socket lichen. 



The Nephroma group, characterised by the kidney 

 shaped lobes on which the chestnut-coloured apothecige 

 are situated contains only two species, one inhabiting 

 hilly rocky places, and the other quarries ; we have not 

 been able to find either of them. 



A curious group of lichens succeeds that of Nephroma. 

 The Gyrophorse have large round apotheciae, in which 

 the spores are arranged spirally, or in a line wound 

 round and round on the surface of the flat shield. The 

 Many-leaved Gyrophora (G. polyphylla, Plate XV., Jig. 4), 

 was lifting its leaf-like transparent olive fronds among the 

 moss in damp places, beside the rocky path beyond the 



