394 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



and, except as regards the squamules, is also similar to small forms of 

 C. cornucopioides. 



Cladonia cristatella, Tuckerm. Suppl. 1, in Amer. Journ. Sci. 

 25, p. 428, char, emend. : thalli squamulis firmis crenatis mox sub- 

 elongatis incisis ; podetiis ascyphis validis ventricoso-cylindricis cartila- 

 gineo-corticatis glabris e flavo- mox pallido-virescentibus apice dilatato 

 digitato-subdivisis, ramulis fastigiatis fertilibus ; apotheciis coccineis. 

 G. Floerkiana, Tuckerm. Syn. p. 55, & Exs. n. 133, non Fr. On 

 dead wood ; and on the earth. New England to Virginia, very com- 

 mon. Westward to Indiana, Herb. Van den Bosch ; Wisconsin, 3Ir. 

 Lapham ; and Lake Superior, Prof. Agassiz. Southward, small 

 forms occur (North Carolina, Rev. Dr. Curtis; South Carolina and 

 Georgia, Mr. Ravenel ; Alabama, Mr. Peters), apparently belonging 

 here ; but the species is a Northern one, and the Southern lichen taking 

 its place more commonly exhibits the peculiar features of C. pulchella, 

 Schwein., which is rather to be regarded a northern state of the sub- 

 tropical C. muscigena. Thallus of small, firm, crenate, or at length a 

 little elongated and lobed squamules, colored like the podetia above, 

 and white below. Podetia ventricose-cylindrical, becoming often more 

 or less regularly elongated-turbinate ; the largest specimens two inches 

 long and three or even four lines in diameter at the thickest part be- 

 low the branches, but passing into slender and shorter states ; with a 

 smooth, but at length verruculose (never mealy) or even subsquaniu- 

 lose epidermis ; the squamules being, however, rarely other than ad- 

 nate, and the whole aspect rather glabrous ; from greenish-yellow 

 becoming pale-green (varying also to grecnish-glaucescent, or even 

 cinerascent) dilated at the apex, which is never scyphiferous, and pass- 

 ing there into subdigitate, fj\stigiate branchlets, always crowned by the 

 scarlet apothecia. The name now applied to the above-described lichen 

 was originally proposed by the writer to distinguish a remarkable state 

 which has proved to be inseparable from the other, this last having 

 passed, with especial reference to its paler, more slender condition, for 

 an American form of the European C. Floerkiana, Fr. But the affin- 

 ity of a plant is to be determined, not by its individual peculiarities, 

 which may apparently relate it to other types, but by its own type, 

 which it may quite imperfectly express. And the type of the dwarf 

 forms of the lichen before us, which have been referred to C. Floerki- 

 ana, is really remote from the type of the latter. G. Ploerkiana (Fr. 

 Lich. Suec. n. 82. Schcer. Lich. Helv. n. 36, pro parte) is, in fact, 



