224 CRYPTOGAMIA ANTARCTICA. [ Puegia, the 
A common Antarctic American plant, rarer in Tasmania, and replaced in Lord Auckland’s group by 8. tenerum. 
Its range is very wide in both hemispheres, from within the Arctic circle of the New and Old Worlds, attaining 
Walden Island north of Spitzbergen, within 9° of the North Pole, stretching south, throughout Europe, to the 
Asturias, Switzerland, and Madeira, and in America to Newfoundland. 
2. SPHAROPHORON tenerum, Laurer. Fl. Antarct. Pt. 1. p.195. Mont. in Voy. au Pole Sud, Bot. 
Crypt. p.172. (Tas. CXOVII. Fig. I.) 
Has. Hermite Island, Cape Horn; most abundant on the hills. Chonos Archipelago, C. Darwin, Esq. 
In the former part of this work we have pointed out the characters which distinguish this species from the 
S. coralloides. It is much more frequent in Tasmania and New Zealand than in South America, in the latter 
country having been only found at Cape Horn, Fuegia, Chiloe, and the Chonos Archipelago. 
I know of no Lichen which exhibits so well the successive development of “lamin proligeree ” in the same 
apothecium. A vertical section of the youngest fruit shows two strata, parallel to, or rather concentric with, one 
another. Of these, the upper is fully ripe long before the bursting of the apothecium. It consists of innumerable 
filiform asci, containing from eight to thirty and more sporules. The sporules are vertically arranged and so densely 
packed that each ascus resembles a moniliform filament: the lower are smaller, the upper gradually larger; none 
however, attain their full size till after the absorption or disappearance of the walls of the ascus; when they 
escape as spherical bodies, surrounded by a narrow transparent margin. 
The thallus of this genus consists of a firm crustaceous transparent cortex, whose inner edge is sharply defined, 
enclosing a mass of longitudinally arranged, matted, curved, dry filaments. These filaments are cylindrical, terete, 
sparingly supplied with very short ramuli, and truncate or obtuse at either extremity: they entirely surround the 
nucleus of the very immature apothecium. 
Prate CXOVII. Fig. 1.—1, fertile, and 2, barren specimens, of the natural size; 3, young, 4, mature, and 5, 
aged apothecia; 6, 7, and 8, vertical sections of 3, 4, and 5, respectively, showing the formation of successive 
lamine proligeree; 9, asci and spores; 10, young (or possibly abortive) asci; 11, mature ascus; 12, spores ; 
13, cortical and filamentous substance of thallus; 14, filaments from the latter :—all highly magnified. 
3. SPHEROPHORON compressum, Ach. Fl. Antarct. Pt. 1. p. 196. 
Has. Hermite Island, Cape Horn, and Falkland Islands; on turfy ground, abundant. 
These specimens are identical with the English plant so called. It is also an Auckland Island species, and is 
found in various countries, both within and without the tropics, as far north as the barren lands bordering the 
Polar Sea in Arctic America. In Europe, Wahlenberg remarks, that it does not occur in any part of Scandinavia, 
Tn the Southern Hemisphere it grows on the South American Andes and in Van Diemen’s Land. 
4. SPHAROPHORON australe, Laurer. Fl. Antaret. Pt. 1. p. 195. 
Haz. Strait of Magalhaens; Port Famine; Capt. King. 
Manifestly identical with the Tasmanian, New Zealand, and Lord Auckland's group species of this name, but 
not hitherto found elsewhere in the New World. 
5. SPHAROPHORON fragile, Ach.; Lich. Univ. p.585. Engl. Bot. t. 2474. Mont. in Voy. au Pole 
Sud, p. 172. 
Haz. Strait of Magalhaens; D Urville. 
A frequent Arctic and North Temperate zone plant, reaching the latitude of Igloolik in the American Polar 
Sea, and, in Europe, Lapland, Spitzbergen and even Ross Islet, the most northern known land in the world. 
