to 
bryologists and students of hepatice; lovers of ferns abound 
everywhere: but the lichenologist is, for the most part, a solitary 
being, and seems to have become shy of making his predilection 
known. 
The consequence of this general neglect of the study is seen in 
the meagre knowledge we have at present of the extent of our 
lichen-flora, and of the distribution of species through our islands. 
So far as flowering plants and ferns are concerned, I believe there 
is no country in which plant distribution has been so fully worked 
out as it has been in our own. But with Lichens the reverse is the 
case. A few districts have been well searched, as North Yorkshire 
by Mudd, Shropshire and some parts of Wales by Leighton, and 
some of the Scotch counties by Crombie ; but of by far the greater 
part of our island we seem to know next to nothing of the lichen- 
flora. 
And if, through the dearth of observers, we are behind-hand in 
a satisfactory knowledge of the number of species which grow with 
us, and of their distribution, there is another portion of the study, 
and that a still more important one, in which we are much more 
backward. As regards the life-history of Lichens, their morphology 
and the relation they bear to other allied classes, there can hardly 
be said to be any native literature at all. Almost everything we 
have on these points has been drawn from foreign sources, and we 
do not seem to have a single observer who has made any extended 
researches calculated to illustrate the life and development. of 
Lichens. 
It is hard to find any valid reason for the almost total disregard 
of these questions by English botanists. It is true that there are 
difficulties to be encountered in the investigation. Lichens are of 
slow growth, and long-continued watching reveals few changes in 
them. The cells of which they are built up are in general so 
minute that it is hard to trace the course of their development, 
and the difficulty is increased by the circumstance that almost 
every attempt to cultivate them has signally failed. In these 
respects they are, perhaps, less promising objects of study than 
Algze or Fungi, which offer more facilities for investigation, in 
