LICHENS. 



Tripe de Roche. 



It is well known that in Northern countries, and 

 especially in the arctic regions, a large, coarse, and 

 leathery lichen is produced on the rocks, which is 

 familiar to the Canadians as Tripe de Roche, or 

 Rock Tripe. Botanically the species are known as 

 GyropJiora, mostly of a grey colour, almost black, 

 expanded and leaf-like, with a tubercular surface 

 not much unlike leather. To appearance they are 

 uninviting as articles of food, and yet under dire 

 calamities they have been useful in supporting 

 human life. The service they rendered to Sir John 

 Franklin's party have invested them with some- 

 thing of romance, which otherwise they could 

 scarcely have deserved. There is something pathetic 

 in the references to this abominable food in the 

 journals of the expedition. "Near Hood's River 

 the surface of the large stones were covered with 

 lichens of the genus Gyropliora, which the Canadians 

 term Tripe de Roche. A considerable quantity was 

 gathered, and, with half a partridge each, furnished 

 us with a slender supper." ^ " The Tripe de Roche, 

 even where we got enough, only served to allay the 

 pangs of hunger for a short time," ^ " This unpala- 

 table weed was now quite nauseous to the whole 

 party, and in several it produced bowel complaints." ^ 

 " The Tripe de Roche had hitherto afforded us our 

 chief support, and we naturally felt great uneasiness 

 at the prospect of being deprived of it, by its being 

 so frozen as to render it impossible for us to gather 



' " Journals," p. 403. * Ibid., 407. ' Ibid., p, 40S. 



