VOL. lJ philosophical transactions. 247 



is to the moderns we are indebted for the discovery of the fat greater number of 

 the plants of this class. In this branch of botany our own countrymen Mr. Ray, 

 Buddie, Dale, Doody, Petiver, and Dr. Morison, Sherard, Richardson, and 

 others, have distinguished themselves: and among foreigners M. Vaillant, Sig. 

 Micheli, and Dr. Haller: but, beyond all Dr. Dillenius has made the most ample 

 discoveries and improvements, of which his elaborate history will ever remain a 

 standing proof. 



The word lichen occurs in the writings of Dioscorides and Pliny ; and though 

 it may be doubtful, there is yet good reason to apprehend, that Dioscorides 

 meant to describe under that name the very plant, or at least one of the same 

 genus, to which the commentators agreed to affix his description. Since then 

 the name has been variously applied by different authors; on which account it is 

 necessary to premise, that the lichen sive hepatica off, or liverwort of the shops, 

 does not fall under this generical term, as it is now formed by the 3 above- 

 named authors. They comprehend under the term lichen, and Dillenius under 

 those of usnea, coralloides, and lichenoides, the hairy tree moss or usnea of the 

 shops; the muscus pulmonarius, tree lungwort, or oak lungs; the lichen ter- 

 restris cinereus, or ash-coloured ground liverwort; the coralline mosses; the cup 

 mosses; horned mosses ; the orchel, or Canary- weed; the muscus islandicus of 

 Bartholine; and a multitude of others found on trees, walls, rocks, and stones, 

 in all parts of the world, and in many parts thereof in very great abundance. 



Caspar Bauhine, in his Pinax, John Bauhine, and our countrymen Gerard 

 and Parkinson, and their contemporaries, as they wrote before the time that gene- 

 rical characters in botany were in use, included these lichens among the other 

 herbaceous mosses, under the general name of muscus; adding to the name in 

 general some epithet descriptive of its form, place of growth, or supposed virtue. 

 Mr. Ray, both in his History of Plants, and in the supplement, as he was usually 

 averse to the forming of new names, has interspersed them among other mosses, 

 under the character of musci steriles seu aspermi, retaining the synonyms of the 

 two Bauhines, Gerard, and Parkinson, to the general species. 



Dr. Morison seems to have been the first, who separated them entirely from' 

 the herbaceous mosses; and, from the analogy he supposed they had with the 

 fungus tribe, formed them into a genus, under the name of musco-fungus. He 

 enumerates 50 species and upwards under this term in the Historia Oxoniensis, 

 and has divided them into 5 orders, according to their different appearances, as 

 follows: 



1. Musco-fungi e terra prominentes, latiores. 5. — 2. Musco-fungi pixidati. li. 

 — 3. Musco-fungi corniculati. 26. — 4. Musco-fungi crustae modo adnascentes. 

 37. — 5. Musco-fungi corticibus arborum dependentes. 53. — Table the 7th of 

 his 1 5th section exhibits several good figures of some of these lichens. 



