CllYPTOGAMIA LICHENES. 93 



.V2. IJSNEA. 



1. U. hirla, frond pendulous, rough with granular powder, 

 greenish-grey, much and irregularly branched; branches intri- 

 cate, flexuose, the ultimate ones setaceous. U. plicata, var. Mrfa t 

 HOOK. Scot. ii. 70. Lichen hirlus, LIGHTF. Scot. 895. Eng. Bot. 

 I. 1354. DILL. Muse. t. 13, f. 12. 



Jlab. On old trees, particularly on firs, common. 



It is this Uatiea, the Evernia prunastri, and the Ramaliiue, 

 which clothe so profusely the trees of too thick or decaying 

 plantations. A fir plantation, on moorish ground, is in par- 

 ticular generally much infested with them, and they give to 

 the trees, by the hoary subdued colour of their motionless 

 frond?, an appearance of old age they are far from having 

 reached. They seem, as it were, to endeavour to hide the 

 deformities which accompany decay, or to invest that de- 

 cay with associations which are not displeasing. The fir, 

 the birch, the ash, the oak, the sloe, and the hawthorn 

 are, when old, always hung with this hoary livery ; but 

 the elm, the sycamore, the lime, and the beech wear it 

 not, or very sparingly ; so that, when G RAY speaks of 

 k * the rude and moss-grown beech," he applies to it a cha- 

 racter by no means appropriate, for no tree is so little or 

 so seldom either rude or moss-grown. They who have 

 wandered across moors, or in our retired deans, will often 

 have noticed 'tis a common object a thorn with few 

 leaves and many a withered branch, old certainly, yet firm 

 and unalterable for many a year, hung in profusion with 

 these lichens. Such a thorn WORDSWORTH has described 

 with his usual simplicity : 



" Like rock or stone, it is o'ergrown 



With lichens to the very top, 

 And hung with heavy tufts of moss, 



A melancholy crop : 

 Up from the earth these mosses creep, 



And this poor thorn they clasp it round 

 So close, you'd say that they were bent, 

 With plain and manifest intent, 



To drag it to the ground." 



53. CENOMYCE. 



* Erect) branched^ and jistular. 

 i. C. rangiferirut) greyish-white, roughish, erect, very' much 



