ON RIMULARIA LIMBORINA. 89 



I have described it from France, and such as it is in the three or 

 four apothecia I received from yourself from Scotland.* This is at 

 once distinguished by the conceptacle involving the hymenium, and 

 not being open above, as is represented in the figure given by Mr. 

 Leighton (c). Very imprudently the reverend author, in an excess 

 of confidence, has embraced those rude opinions, that "the para- 

 physes becoming dead, subcarbonaceous, and fuscous-black, espe- 

 cially at their apices, form a continuous or partial carbonaceous 

 stratum over the epitheciimi or disk," which " is purely imagi- 

 nary " (to use the "gentlemanly " words of the author). Equally 

 " purely imaginary," and more grievous a mistake was it when the 

 reverend author, in " Lich, Memorabilia," No. 4, said " Zoospores 

 or spermatozoids do exist in ferns, mosses, hepaticce" &c., thus 

 showing scarcely any knowledge of the zoospores of which he 

 treats, and concerning the nature of which he might have learned 

 in any elementary treatise. In Rimularia there is no stratiform 

 epithecium present, but it appears in the form of a fissure of the 

 conceptacle. 



Moreover, with respect to the Lecidece, of which he treats, it is 

 not sufficient that new species should be definitely and certainly 

 constituted, unless after a fuller and more acute examination of 

 anatomical differences, than what is afforded by giving merely a 

 section of the apothecium and the spores without any micro- 

 metrical measurements for comparison. The cliaracters of the 

 spermogones ought also at the same time to be given. But of this 

 elsewhere. Meanwhile, Eimularia remains as a distinct lichen, and 

 is always to be distinguished from every Lecidece whatever with 

 gyrose apothecia; for these in Rimularia are never gyrose. 



[We cannot approve the tone of this communication. — Editor.'^ 



MYCOGEAPHIA.f 



Unfortunately the literature of Mycology consists largely of 

 fragments, memorials of splendid designs never prosecuted, of 

 good intentions never fulfilled. We cannot but call to mind one 

 after another the splendid works we might have consulted had they 

 attained completion. We might instance Venturi's Miceto 

 Bresciano, which came to a close at the fourth part; Fries's 

 Icones, which fortunately have attained a tenth part ; Notaris' 

 Sferiacei Italici, of which one part appeared; Hoffmann's Icones 

 Analyticfe, which encountered sudden death at the 4th part ; 

 Gonnerman and Eabenhorst's Mycologia Europa^a, which expired 

 witlithe ninth part ; Smith & Saunders's Illustrations, which never 

 got beyond a second part ; Nitschke's Pyrenomycetes Germanici, of 

 which only two parts have appeared ; the splendid Flore d'Algerie 



* Of my own specimen and of the h-ue Opegraph% trochodes, Tayl., in Herb, 

 I'ayl. in Herb. Brit. Mus., I shall have something- tosny afterwards. — J, M. C. 



t Mycographia, seu Icones Fungorum. Figures of Fungi from all parts of the 

 world, by M. C. Cooke. Part i. Williams and Norgate. 



