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NOTES ON THE CEROOLEPUS JOLITEUS, AND 

 OTHEE ALGOID COLOEIFIC PLANTS. 



By Edwin Lees, F.L.S., F.G.S., Fellow of the Botanical Society of 

 Edinburgh, &c. 



The particle of minute research that I here offer to the Woolhope Naturalists' 

 Field Club, I snust confess is not of an utilitarian character. I have not collected 

 the "fungous fruits of earth," like my far-searching friend Dr. Bull, with a view to 

 ^astronomical enjoyment, but have chiefly directed my attention to the colorific 

 tints that Crytogamic vegetation has sjjread over rocks, walls, roofs, and stagnant 

 waters, thus 



" Noting all the changes of the sky, 

 And viewing Nature with artistic eye ; ' 



for Lichens, Algie, and minute Fungi, verily give an aspect to a rocky landscape 

 not generally sufficiently considered even by those whose profession it is to deli- 

 neate landscape scenery. This has led me to study a production not very gen- 

 erally noticed, to which I now propose to direct an investigating eye. This sub- 

 stance forms a coloured rust upon rocks, stones, and old buildings in secluded 

 places, and is with difficulty scraped off, and thus is very diflferent to the soft 

 structures of the Confcrvoidcce or Palmellacca', though agreeing in some respects 

 with the latter family. These minute substances require very close e.xaraination, 

 and as a study demand minds that delight in poring into the mysterious ; for in 

 this department where Nature descends to form complications whose interior 

 development is invisible to the naked eye, the microscope becomes indispensable, 

 and a student requires to have a microscopic mind. 



Yet these minute organisms impart a colour to objects in the landscape more 

 or less apparent according to the state of the atmosphere, and are often conspicu- 

 ously developed by rain, though in this respect they have not been sufficiently 

 noticed by observers in their descriptions of the country, or by artists who in 

 their pictures might take advantage of them in contrasting colours. 



The Cryptogamous vegetation that chiefly prevails upon rocks, lofty heights, 

 or damp walls, are the Mosses, Lichens, and Algae, and these cover more or less 

 not only rocks and walls, but even the ground almost everywhere, even roofs also 

 in rural places often glow with the brightest colours of yellow and orange, as the 

 poet Crabbe has noticed in describing scenery — 



" The living stains which Nature's hand alone 

 Profuse of life pours out upon the stone." 



Lichens give a very beautiful investiture frequently to masses of rock, which they 

 often cover with a white, black, or variously coloured adventitious crust, which 

 in some cases gives a name to the rock itself. Thus in South Wales, I once notic- 

 ed a mass of rock near Fishguard bearing the native Welsh appellation of " Cam 

 Wen," commonly called, or the "White Rock,,' from the milk-white lichen that 



