SPILONEMA. EPHEBE. 131 



treme north. It has not yet been detected here. There being 



no question of the plant's being the type of Thermutis, Fr. (8. 

 0. V. p. 302 ; 1825) it is not a sufficient reason for supplanting 

 this name by Nylander's, that Fries, many years later, referred 

 incorrectly, in Hit. (Schaer. Enum. p. 248), an incongruous lichen 

 to his genus.] 



[SPILONEMA, Born. 



Apothecia minute, lentiform, imtnarginate, black. Spores 

 ellipsoid, colourless. Spermatia oblong j on multi-articulate 

 sterigmas. Thallus slender filiform, branched, the large 

 gonimia arranged at first in an axial column, as in the last, 

 but soon exhibiting, like that, the dissolution of this column 

 into transverse layers. Nyl. ut infra. 



S. paradoxum, Born. ; " thallus densely caespitose, entangled, 

 irregularly and somewhat one-sidedly branched, the filaments 

 about an eighth of an inch in height ; blackish-brown ; apothecia 

 hemispherical, without any margin, black. Spores ellipsoid, 

 simple, 9-4 mic." Nyl. Syn. p. 89, t. 2,/. 3. Leight. in Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. 1865. 



Kocks in the south of Europe ; as also in North Wales ; and 

 in Finland. 



This plant is also unknown here, having, like the last, been 

 hitherto sought in vain among the Sirosophons, etc., of our rocks ; 

 but it may occur within our limits, however long obscured by 

 the absence of fruit. The general agreement in thalline struct- 

 ure of the plants which constitute the present section (Ephebei) 

 is such, that their distinction turns on their fruit-characters. 

 Spilonema differs yet, by its branched and shrub-like habit, from 

 Thermutis ; as by its smaller size from Ephebe. 



A minute, pulvinate lichen, looking like a small and lighter- 

 coloured Ephebe, which Bornet (in litt., /dte Farlow) was inclined 

 provisionally to refer to this genus, but infertile, has occurred, 

 on calcareous rocks in Alabama, Peters ; and, what is possibly 

 the same, on granitic rocks in Massachusetts, Willey.'] 



\ 



XXIIL EPHEBE, Fr., Born. 



Apothecia minute, now persistently immersed in the 

 thallus and endocarpeine, and now superficial and globose- 



