5 8 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



given, as regards British teachers and British students, 

 that unfortunately, hitherto, no successful effort has 

 been made for its popularization ; almost all, if not 

 all, who have written upon the subject have never 

 really sympathized with the student, or appreciated 

 his wants ; and hence British Lichenology has been 

 crude and rigidly technical, to a degree which has 

 never been attained in any other branch of botanical 

 science. 



In the coldest as well as the hottest regions yet 

 visited, and at the greatest heights yet reached by 

 man, lichens have been met with in more or less 

 abundance. There seems to be a great similarity of 

 species in different parts of the world. Two-thirds 

 of New Holland lichens are natives of Europe, and 

 the majority of Himalayan species are European 

 forms. 



On the highest mountains, between an elevation 

 of thirteen thousand and sixteen thousand feet, there 

 is a terminal region of vegetation known as the zone 

 of lichens. On the central and southern Alps, above 

 the highest limit of flowering plants, species of Par- 

 melia, Lecidea, etc., are found on all the rocks pro- 

 jecting through the snow, and they occur at above 

 sixteen thousand feet on Chimborazo. One species, 

 called the Geographic Lichen, is found above the line 

 of perpetual snow on the Alps, and is the last type 

 of vegetation on the Andes and Himalayas ; and Dr. 

 Hooker found lichens as the last remnants of vege- 

 tation in the southern hemisphere. Although found 

 at such extreme limits of temperature, the number of 

 species are limited, and in great contrast to their 



