THE LICHEN FLORA OF THE SANTA CRUZ PENINSULA 55 



Apothecia minute, black, the stipe very short; capitulum sub- 

 cylindrical to top-like; paraphyses short, thread-like; asci not properly 

 observed; spores ellipsoid, simple or apparently so, but really becom- 

 ing bilocular, with a narrow, almost invisible septum, best seen as a 

 darker portion of the spore when examined under a medium power 



of the microscope, «. 



12 — 16 



Rare; forming rather shiny, whitish patches on the smooth bark of 

 Quercus agrifolia at Devils Canon, altitude 2300 feet. 



In the absence of authentic material for comparison referred here 

 with some doubt, but in all probability correctly. 



2. CALICIUM CURTUM (?) Turn. & Borr. 



Calicium curtum Turner and Borrer, Lich. Br. 148. 1839. 

 Calicium curtum Crombie, British Lichens, i : 93. 1894. 



Thallus thin, granulose, or occasionally wanting, whitish to dusky 

 or blackish gray. 



Apothecia small to moderate, usually abundant, black, the stipe 

 usually stout, quite short; capitulum at first sub-cylindrical, then 

 flattened, until they are much like the lower half of a top or an urn; 

 disk broad, plane, black, with a concolorous, narrow, erect, entire 

 margin; disk and margin finally concealed by the extruded spore mass; 

 margin very narrowly whitish pruinose at times; paraphyses branched, 



5 - 6i 

 thread-like, entangled; asci narrow, cylindrical, [i; spores 



ellipsoid to oblong, bilocular, nearly always constricted at the middle, 



II - I4i 



On an old fence on the Stengel ranch, near the head of Alpine Creek, 

 altitude 1400 feet. 



While differing in several important respects from the published 

 descriptions of C. curtum, our plant is nearer to it than to anything 

 else. 



A lichen widely distributed in both the northern and the southern 

 hemispheres. 



