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in particular, and the scientific world in general, in following out 

 several special paths of research, and clearing up some obscure points 

 specially demanding elucidation, which are indicated below. He 

 mentioned that, as his experiments and researches were only in pro- 

 gress, he could not at present furnish a complete paper on the dyeing 

 properties of the lichens, or on any other individual department of 

 lichenology, but intended to lay before the Society merely a number 

 of isolated facts and notes, bearing generally on the present state of 

 this branch of botany and botanical chemistry. 



The author, after a few prefatory remarks, continued: — " It was 

 not long till I found that the field was comparatively a new and open 

 one, and that, unaided, 1 could proceed but a very short way in the 

 examination of a subject of such vast extent, at first chiefly from want 

 of instruments with which to operate, but latterly from deficiency of 

 materials on which to operate. In the summer of 1851 (besides 

 studying, so far as our metropolitan libraries would allow, the litera- 

 ture of the subject), 1 commenced (with the intention of working out 

 leisurely) a series of experimental inquiries on the following points of 

 the natural history of the lichens. 



" 1. Their anatomy, organography, and physiology, and in particu- 

 lar : — 



" a. Their general microscopical anatomy, with illustrative drawings 

 and dissections. With the exception of the beautiful drawings con- 

 tained in the ' Abbildungen ' of Link, in the ' Cryptogamic Botany of 

 Ross's Antarctic Voyage,' by Dr. Hooker, and in a few kindred works, 

 we had then no complete series of drawings of minute structure, dis- 

 sections illustrative of organography, nor any good monograph enter- 

 ing extensively, and, at the same time, accurately, into the special 

 anatomy, &c., of these plants. But, since that period, the valuable 

 memoirs of Tulasne, Bayrnoffer, and others have filled up a great gap 

 in this branch of lichenology ; and 1 believe we may shortly expect, 

 from the author of the ' British Species of Angiocarpous Lichens,' a 

 fuller work descriptive of the British lichens, which, I hope, will leave 

 us little to do or wish for in this respect. 



" b. The special anatomy of their reproductive organs, and the phy- 

 siology of their reproductive function. On both of these subjects a 

 war of discussion lately raged between the botanists of Germany and 

 France ; and its fury is only now beginning to be subdued. Tulasne 

 is the first, so far as I am aware, who has pubhshed anything like a 

 complete series of drawings and descriptions of the lichen reprodue- 



