70 PHYSCIA. 



branched, blackening fibrils; apothecia middling- sized, pedicel- 

 late, the disk white pruinose, the border radiately lobate. Spores 

 larger than in other members of this group, typically bilocular, 



^ mic., and more. Nyl. Syn. 1, p. 414, in part. Parmelia 



speciosa (exc. excip.), leucomelas, Eschw. Bras. p. 198. Tuckerm. 

 1. c. p. 393. 



Trees; mountains of North Carolina, Michaux, Fl. 1803; 

 Lesguereux ; the range of the lichen southward much- the same 

 with that of the last, reaching northward to near Albany, 

 N. Y., Peck; and, even fertile, the coast of Connecticut, Willey; 



and, westward, the Californian coast, Menzies; Bolander. 



This extraordinary modification of a foliaceous genus was the 

 earliest to attract attention of a group of lichens which, spar- 

 ingly represented at the north, is conspicuous and elegantly 

 varied in the warmer regions of the earth, and affords the best 

 representation and reconciliation that we have of all the feat- 

 ures of PJiyscia. This is the group typified in Europe by P. 

 speciosa. Fries fully referred what cannot be separated from 

 P. leucomela (Moug. & Nestl. exs. n. 941) to the same species 

 that should include P. speciosa ; and even Acharius, and Nylander 

 have failed to reach any other opinion as to the well-character- 

 ized P. hypoleuca ; while the last author has gone far to recog- 

 nize a conspecific relation between P. leucomela and P. comosa. 

 As P. speciosa is exhibited in the island of Cuba (Wright lAch. 

 Cub. -n. 84) it should seem to pa'ss directly into that tropical form 

 which has been called P. podocarpa (Mont. & V. d. Bosch Lick. 

 Jav. ! p. 21. Wright Lich. Cub. n. 82) and the latter cannot well 

 be kept far apart from P. comosa. This last is the analogue in 

 P. speciosa sensu latiori of the now generally accepted P. stell- 

 aris, v. hispida, and in fact no more separable. In an abbre- 

 viated and wider-lobed, ascendant form referred by some 

 authors to P. leucomela (v. latifolia, Mey & Flot. in herb. Beral. ! 

 Nyl. Syn.} it is easy to see too close a relation to P. comosa ; 

 and Nylander, as has been said, goes far to admit this ; but 

 even the typical, elongated P. leucomela of all authors is found 

 in states really not differing (one might say) at all from P. spe^ 

 ciosa but in being more lax, and in the ecorticate under side. 

 And the systematic value of the larger dimensions of the spores 

 of the lichen now before us is certainly qualified by what is 

 known of exactly similar spore-variations in other tropical 

 species. These spores vary indeed (the spore-cells appearing 



