Lichenes^ 



FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 



267 



as I have from time to time found that a species which I had supposed new was already described 

 by some other author, from another and sometimes very distant part of the world, leading me sincerely 

 to wish that the task had fallen into abler hands. I must take this opportunity, however, of rendering my 

 best thanks to that veteran and indefatigable cryptogamist Dr. Montagne, for having in several cases com- 

 municated to me his remarks on New Zealand Lichens, on which I desired his opinion : without his help 

 the errors in the following pages would undoubtedly have been more numerous than they are. I have 

 also been enabled, by the liberality with which he has from time to time communicated specimens of va- 

 rious exotic species described by him, to identify some of them with New Zealand species. 



In comparing the New Zealand Lichen-flora with that of Great Britain, some remarkable features of 

 contrariety as well as identity may be discovered. New Zealand possesses about thrice as many species 

 of the genus Sticta, and perhaps nearly twice as many Zeorce, as our own islands contain, as well as several 

 species of Nephroma, Parmelia, Stereocauhn, and Splicer ophoron, unknown to the northern hemisphere. 

 The following genera, which are absent from Britain altogether, are found in New Zealand : — Trypethe- 

 Uum, Porina, Myriangium, and Ccenogonium, to which Coccocarpia should perhaps likewise be added. 

 The black -fruited Cladonice (viz. C. retipora and C. aggregate/) are also absent from Britain, being peculiar 

 to the southern hemisphere. 



The British Mora, on the other hand (which comprises perhaps at least 300 distinct species), boasts 

 about a dozen species of Calicium, a genus having only a single representative in the Flora of New Zealand ; 

 indeed, so far as can be judged from the discoveries hitherto made, this genus appears to be extremely 

 rare in the southern hemisphere generally. It has also divers Cetrarice, Evernice, Peltigerce, Sticta, Par- 

 melia, and Stereocanla not hitherto found in New Zealand, to say nothing of the obscurer genera, many 

 of whose British species may probably occur, though they have not hitherto been collected there. Nearly 

 all the British genera occur in New Zealand ; we should hardly insist on any as being probably absent, ex- 

 cept Roceetta, Gyrqp/wra, and Solorina, although it is certainly somewhat singular that no Opegrap/ia has 

 been collected (a single species of Orapkis occurs) : other small and obscure genera, such as Coniocarpon, 

 Sagedia, and Strigula, will probably one day be found there. The Lobaria section of the genus Sticta [S. 

 pulmonacea and its allies), though present over the Old and New World, from the Arctic circle to the 

 southern tropics, seems to be absent from New Zealand, and probably from the temperate and colder re- 

 gions of the south almost universally. (S. pulmonacea, however, is found at the Cape of Good Hope.) 



I have but rarely introduced the specific characters of the Lichens hereinafter enumerated, except in 

 the genus Sticta ; unless they seemed to be new, or were described only in some rare work. Probably I 

 might have added the characters of the species first described by Dr. Montagne in his various works, had I 

 not been aware that it is his intention to publish in one volume the diagnoses of those cryptogamous plants 

 which he has first described, accompanied by descriptions of species hitherto unpublished*. The principal 

 books, therefore, that will be necessary to the student, in addition to the above, are the ' Lichenographia 

 Europsea' of Fries, and the ' Synopsis Lichenum' of Acharius. The ' Lichenes Helvetici Exsiccati' of 

 Schserer, containing 650 species and varieties of dried specimens of European (principally Swiss) Lichens, 

 will be found exceedingly useful. His ' Enumeratio critica Lichenum Europseorurn' is the latest descriptive 

 work on European Lichens (published in 1850), and contains some information not to be found in Fries, from 



* ' Sylloge Generum Specierumque Cryptogamarum quas in variis operibus descriptas iconibusque illustratas 

 nunc ad diagnosim reductas nonnullasque novas interjectas ordine systematico disposuit C. Montague.' The an- 

 nouncement states : — " Ce travail, qui est en voie d'execution, ne paraitra que l'annee prochaine. Paris, 1 Novem- 

 bre, 1852." I have not yet seen its publication announced. 



