129 
THE LICHENS OF CUMBERLAND. 
By THE REv. W. JOHNSON. 
(Read at the Workington Annual Meeting. ) 
LIcHENS are classed amongst the Flowerless Plants, or, in the secondary 
division of the Vegetable Kingdom. Their position in that division 
naturally falls between the Algze on the one hand and the Fungi on the 
other. They are closely allied to both these adjoining Classes, still, separ- 
ated from them by the characteristics of a distinct group. Some modern 
Botanists, on what appear very insufficient grounds, deny that the Lichen 
is an autonomous plant, having a distinctive and independent existence 
and they arrange it under the order of Ascomycetous Fungi. The Lichens 
join the Alge in their gelatinous forms, but differ from them by not living 
under water, by possessing hyphal tissue, and by bearing spores in asci ; 
while the Algz propagate themselves in ways distinct from this. They are 
marked off from the Fungi on the opposite hand, by the green cells in their 
tissue, which true fungi never have; and by their different method of 
absorbing nutriment. The Fungi live at the expense, and by the decay, of 
other organized matter: but the Lichens nourish themselves out of the 
atmosphere. They are aérial plants, and just as the Alge imbibe their 
food from the surrounding medium of the water, so Lichens absorb theirs 
out of the surrounding medium of the air. 
Lichens have no axis, either ascending or descending, and no roots, 
branches, or leaves in the ordinary sense of the word. The simple plant 
consists of a vegetative and a reproductive system, whiah are as suitable 
and complete for the purpose they have to accomplish, as the organs of the 
highest phenogam. The vegetative portion of the Lichen is called the 
thallus. This always bears the organs of reproduction either upon its 
surface or imbedded in its tissue}"and it may be said to constitute the plant. 
It varies very much in its form, and in its habit of growth. Sometimes it 
is filamentous, and is seen hanging in grey and tangled masses from the 
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