308 L'Abbe E. Coemans on the Cladonise 



C. cariosa. Dr. Nylander refers it to C. delicata, Flk. (Nyl. 

 Syn. p. 211). 



In the herbarium of Florke, preserved in the museum of 

 Rostock, there are a great number of specimens of C. cariosa 

 with sterile and macrophylline thalli, perfectly similar to the 

 C. strepsilis b. plumosa of the Acharian herbarium. He has 

 therefore confounded two neighbouring forms, but belonging to 

 two different types. 



The C. strepsilis (Ach.) represents only an insignificant form 

 of C. ccEspititia, and may therefore be neglected in lichenography. 

 As to the variety plumosa, it may be mentioned as a sterile form 

 of C. cariosa, without elevating it to the rank of a variety. 



5. Cladonia alcicornis, (Ach.) Syn. p. 350 et hb. ejustl. 



Under this name many different species are preserved in the 

 Acharian herbarium : — 



(1.) Divers specimens of the true C. alcicornis, collected in 

 France, Germany, and Switzerland. There is no specimen from 

 Sweden, notwithstanding that this species grows in the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula, even to the 60th degree of latitude. I have 

 found it abundantly this summer, especially on the west side of 

 Sweden. 



(2.) Two specimens of C. cervicornis received from Germany. 

 This error of determination is very easily explained by the diffi- 

 culty which very often exists of distinguishing with certainty 

 the thallus of C. cervicornis from certain sterile forms of C. alci- 

 cornis which have the inferior surface of their leaflets rose- 

 coloured or purplish. 



(3.) Eight tufts of C.jOM??^ens, Flk. This error seems almost in- 

 explicable ; but the examination of the herbarium of the celebrated 

 Swedish licheuographer has proved to me that, to the end of 

 his life, he never rightly knew the C. pungens, and that the re- 

 proach which Florke formerly addressed to him, that he did not 

 know the Cladonia well, was sometimes not without foundation. 



Lastly, amongst the specimens of C. alcicornis in fructification 

 there is a specimen of C. degenerans, and another of C.pyxidata, 

 fertile. Could it be through carelessness that Acharius placed 

 here these lichens ? 



The C. gentilis, (Ach.) L. U. p. 530, which Acharius at first 

 made a variety of C. alcicornis, but which he withdrew in his 

 ' Synopsis,^ in consequence of the criticisms of Florke, most 

 certainly belongs to C. alcicornis. It constitutes, according to 

 the two small specimens in the herbarium at Helsingfors, a form 

 or even a variety with simple narrow leaflets having long black 

 fibrillse on their margins. The aspect of this variety reminds us 

 of that of Physcia leucomela, Mich. 



