15 
charming of them is the pretty cup-moss, which is doubtless well 
known by sight to every one. 
Besides the Cladonie, species of two other genera of similar 
structure are to be met with commonly enough on rocks and walls 
in this neighbourhood. Some of them are coralline in appearance, 
and from this circumstance one species in each genus bears the 
name coralloides. Very beautiful they are when closely examined, 
but our Westmorland representatives lose much of their interest 
from being so frequently being barren. 
Whoever has spent a short time in larch plantations must have 
been much struck by the grisly beards which depend thickly from 
stems and branches. None, however, of our British plants emulate 
the luxuriance they attain in continental forests. A few inches in 
length is the utmost they reach to here, while there they frequently 
exceed a yard. These beards are species of Usnea, to one of 
which the name darbaza, or ‘‘the bearded,” was given, and it is to 
this species that our British forms belong. I cannot do more than 
mention the names of other genera,—Aamalina, Evernia, Alectoria 
(one species of which looks almost like tangled pieces of hair from a 
horse’s tail), and Cefraria. ‘To this last genus belongs a somewhat 
leafy species, the so-called ‘“‘Iceland moss” of the druggist, but 
which may be found on the summits of many of our Westmorland 
hills—not that it confines itself to elevated places, for I have 
gathered it on Cliburn Moss at a very moderate elevation indeed. 
The three modifications thus hurriedly described—the Crus- 
taceous, the Foliaceous, and the Shrubby—include all the forms 
that the thallus of Lichens assumes as regards external shape and 
division. From the most powdery to the most shrub-like there is 
an unbroken connexion of intermediates that shows the absolute 
identity of the organ so modified. All the plants I have referred 
to belong to the main section or family of Lichens. ‘There remain 
some aberrant plants differing not so much in shape as in colour 
and consistence. We meet with examples of these around Amble- 
side, but they are more plentiful and diversified upon limestone 
rocks and earth. 
When wet many of these Collemacee, as they are called, seem 
