STICTA. 95 



29, 115), imitate more closely the figure of buck's-horns than 

 those of any other species. Swartz, who recognized this lichen 

 and gave its name the form it has since borne (Prodr. Ind. Occ.), 

 undertook also to separate a wider-lobed one, which, as contrast- 

 ing with his l multipartite- dichotomous ' damcecornis, he pro- 

 posed to call Lichen laciniatus. He figured this last (Lich. Amer. 

 t. 7) as Hoffmann had already done (PI. Lich. 3, t. 65, 3), and it 

 was received as a species by Acharius, who yet remarked (I. c.) 

 that only the width of the lobes kept it from damcecornis. But 

 Delise, who followed Bory in distinguishing specifically two 

 members of Acharius's S. damcecornis, followed also the latter 

 author in accepting S. laciniata, though he scarcely added to 

 our knowledge of it. And finally both lichens have been re- 

 viewed, and set up once more as distinct by Nylander, I. c. The 

 considerable material which has brought me to a different opin- 

 ion embraces, beside the large collections of Fendler in Vene- 

 zuela, and Wright in Cuba, not a few from the herbaria of 

 Hooker, Greville, and Borrer, from the Berlin herbarium, and 

 the Paris herbarium (the last, as some others, being determined 

 by Nylauder), and above all from the herbarium of Delise, and 

 the admirable New Granada collection of Lindig, also named by 

 Nylander. And all this scarcely leaves room for doubt that 

 Acharius was right, and that the distinction of 8. laciniata from 

 the other is wholly an arbitrary one. The thalline characters 

 by no means justify it j and the spores, in which Nylander ap- 

 pears willing to see some slight difference in the measurements, 

 prove positively the same. It is true that the group, as thus 

 understood, is a vast, and, like other tropical groups, a very 

 varied one ; it appears better however to keep it together, at 

 least until sub-species can be indicated from the evidence of 

 larger material, and more satisfactorily, than has yet been done. 

 S. damcecornis, v. macropliylla, Nyl. I. c., as respects my specimen 

 of S. macropliylla j Del., from the herbarium of the latter, as also 

 a specimen from the Paris Museum named by Nylander himself, 

 should be excluded (by the criterion of the gonidia) from the 

 species. And S. patula, M. & V. d. Bosch, which is referred by 

 the same author, 1. c., to his v. caper ata, differs yet, in the origi- 

 nal specimens (as in another from Tahiti), in larger, often fus- 

 cescent spores, measuring ^jj mic., which suggest rather v. 

 platyphyllaj Nyl., now taken by him for a species. 



