114 LICHENES. [Variolaria. 



der thick, irregular; the disk of a pale, flesh-colour; often seve- 

 ral in each apothecium. 



On siliceous rocks, facing the south. Dunkerron Mountain ; not 

 rare. The patch, often several inches in diameter, is conspicuous by 

 the crowded and stalked apothecia, placed in contact, like certain ba- 

 saltic columns. The granulations of the thallus are of different sizes, 

 the larger sometimes convolute, or indistinctly lobed by the confluence, 

 as it were, of several granulations. The thallus is thin and almost 

 filmy at the edge, and even somewhat radiating. The wet surface is 

 somewhat more green than the dry. Towards the edges the apothecia 

 have shorter, sometimes no stalks. The apothecia rise as large spheres 

 of the thallus, of a like colour and similar roughness, burst by an irre- 

 gular crack in one or more directions, leaving very coarse thallodal 

 grains here and there on the surface : at length these grains drop off, 

 and a fine powder, white, (wet or dry,) covers the flesh-coloured disk or 

 disks. Two, three, four, and even five laminae proligerae are seen 

 within the same apothecium, separated by dense and white partitions, 

 .by moisture pale and pellucid, having internally elongated cellules. 

 This aggregation of lamina; proligeree presents a character so im- 

 portant, that they who are inclined might see in it a generic distinction 

 analogous to that which separates Porina, Ach. from Verrucaria 

 Ach. 



9. V. torta. Thallus very thin, between filmy and tartare- 

 ous, cracked, smooth, whitish, indeterminate ; apothecia very 

 minute, hemispherical, bursting irregularly ; the disk twisted 

 and bent, of a pale flesh colour ; the border irregular. 



On siliceous rocks, in shade, at Askew Wood, County of Kerry. 

 Thallus in old age assumes a greenish hue, which is always observ- 

 able in a moist state ; when dry the edges of the cracks of the thallus 

 are slightly elevated, giving a rough appearance to the surface. Apo- 

 thecia when young are covered with a white pruina or powder. The 

 twisted disk lies in a cavity of the apothecium, correspondently 

 twisted ; this cavity has sometimes a cellular appearance of the sides. 

 The lamina proligera is of a pale milky colour, gelatinous when wet, 

 and under a high magnifier is found to contain numerous cylindrical 

 cellules, having minute globules interspersed. This species may be 

 taken for certain states of Lecanora coarctata, Ach. but the thallus is 

 more distinctly separated by fissures, and the structure of the apothecia 

 by no means alike. A white powder covering the disk in a young 

 state gives it a better claim to Variolaria than any other described 

 genus. 



10. V. chlorothecia. Thallus tartareous, thin, white, areolate, 

 subpulverulent at the surface, with a narrow, deep-black bor- 

 der ; buds with hemispherical, thallodal podelia, tipped with 

 minute, round, brownish, at length caducous points ; apothecia 

 sessile, round, flattish, with a thick, thallodal margin ; powder 

 white, covering a greenish -olive disk. 



On siliceous rocks, Carig Mountain, County of Kerry. The minute 

 Isidium-Wke buds, the narrow black border to the thallus, the flat apo- 

 thecia, and colour of the disk, together, are sufficiently distinctive. 

 The buds dropping, leave cup shaped cavities, green at their bottoms, 

 on the tops of the podetia. The lamina proligera, when moist, is 



