CRYPTOGAMIA ALGM. 865 



But what particularly diftinguiflies this Lichen Is^ 

 that the margins of the leaves are edged with a 

 black fringe, which gives them a crifped ap- 

 pearance. This fringe, when viewed through a 

 microfcope, appears to confill of a crowd of 

 Jittle pedicles, terminated each with a head or 

 clufter of branches, like trees in miniature; and 

 not only upon the margin of the leaves, but fre- 

 quently alfo upon their difc, this fringe grows 

 in little clumps or balls, appearing to the naked 

 eye like fmall black warts. 



Befides this fringe, which may be confidcred as 

 the female frudifications of the plant, there are 

 alfo male warts found upon the difc of the fame 

 individual. Thcfe are black and wrinkled, at 

 .firll flat, and a little funk or imprefs'd in the 

 leaf, but afterwards m.ore convex and elevated. 

 They appear through the microfcope to be of 

 the fame ftrudure with the hair-button kind be- 

 fore mentioned, but compoled of finer hairs, 

 differently tv/ifted, and more clofely compaded. 



^uch is the defcription of our fpecimens, which 

 are preclfely the fame with thofc of Dilknius at 

 Oxford^ from which the figure was made which 

 Linnaus has cited for his L. polyrhizus. But 

 why that author, in giving the fpecific difference 

 of that plant, fhould fay of it, that ir is utrin- 

 que lavis, when the under fide is fo remarkably 

 rough with fibrous radicles, is more than we are 

 able to refolve. As we wiili to follow nature, 

 K k k rather 



