LICHENS. 



233 



on the top, to be treasured most, because it would not 

 fade. 



This is what old Gerarde speaks of as the " cup mosse," 

 and the qualities of which he sets forth : — " The Museus 

 pyxidatus I have Englished cup mosse, or chalice mosse. 

 It groweth on the most barren, dry, and gravelly ditch 

 banks, creeping flat upon the ground like unto liverwort, 

 but of a yellowish- white colour, among which leaves start 

 up here and there certaine little things fashioned like a 

 little cup, called a beaker or chalice, and of the same 

 colour and substance as the lower leaves, which un- 

 doubtedly may be taken for the flowers ; the powder of 

 which, given to children in any liquor for certaine daies 

 together, is a most certaine remedy against that perilous 

 malady called the chin-cough." This lichen has been 

 used as a remedy for hooping-cough long since the days 

 of Gerarde. It is of a glaucous colour, and bears its fruit 

 on tiny footstalks rising from the rim of the cup or 

 chalice. 



The Fringed cup-lichen (S. fimbriatus) is even prettier, 

 for its chalice is delicately fringed, its colour more 

 glaucous, and the tiny fronds of its thallus are lined 

 with silvery white — these cluster not only on the ground, 

 but on the podetia. The Thread-shaped cup-lichen has 

 the smallest cups of all, scarcely more than the mere 

 hollow end of the stem ; the small apothecise are situated 

 on the rim of these, and often quite fill up the cavity. 

 All these we have found upon our Yorkshire moors, and 

 near Callander and Oban, and among the Pentland 



