I860.] KOCCELLA TINCTORIA AND R. PHYCOPSIS. 267 



I have not seen recorded, between West Wickliam and Keston 

 church, a district which also possesses Narcissus Pseudo-Narcis- 

 sus and LathrcBa Squamaria. Of the Isatis I only found three 

 plants, which were strong and healthy, but being in the centre 

 of a meadow, they are doubtless prevented from exercising their 

 great capacity of spreading, by being regularly mowed before 

 they have produced their fruit. The short time during which 

 they can be found in flower before the signs of them are thus 

 effaced, is probably the cause, or one of the causes, why they 

 have so long escaped notice. J. S. M. 



August 12th, 1860. 



HOCCELLA TINCTORIA AND E. PHYCOPSIS IN THE 

 ISLE OF WIGHT. 



By the Rev. T. Salwey. 



Sir, — Such of your readers as are lichenists will doubtless 

 feel much interest in knowing that my friend Mr. More, of 

 Bembridge, has discovered two stations in the Isle of Wight for 

 Roccella ttnctoria, as well as (if it be indeed a distinct species) the 

 still rarer R. phycopsis. He found these last year on the ruins 

 of the old church-tower at St. Helen's, where it grows only in a 

 small patch, which it is hoped any lichenists will be kind enough 

 to spare, lest the habitat should be destroyed. But this year he 

 finds the plant growing "in the greatest abundance all over the 

 north side and tower of the church at Godshill." My friend Mr. 

 H. Hyndman also found a single, but a remarkably fine specimen 

 of the form phycopsis this spring on the church at Shanklin, 

 The only habitats given in Hooker's ^English Flora' are "mari- 

 time rocks in the extreme south of England, Guernsey, Portland 

 Island, and abundant on the steep rocks of the Scilly Islands." 

 I found it rather abundant myself some years ago in Guernsey, 

 but failed in detecting it at the Land's End in Cornwall when 

 botanizing there about seven years ago, though I have no doubt 

 a more extended search would find it somewhere on the range of 

 rocks between Lamorna and the Land's End. 



The editor of the 'English Flora' has fallen, as I conceive, 

 into a great mistake in stating that " the R. phycopsis of Acharius 



