VOL. L.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 257 



Scotch and others to dye a purple or scarlet colour. The preparation of it is by 

 powdering, and making it into a mass with urine. Parkinson tells us * the poor 

 people in Derbyshire scrape it from the rocks, and make the same use of it. Mr. 

 Ray -f" adds to this account, that the Welsh, who call it kenkerig, have long 

 been acquainted with this property, and have it in common use. The colour 

 from this moss is but very dull ; but if the same methods were taken to improve 

 it as have been with the orchel, it would doubtless be rendered much better, 

 and more durable. Linneus relates J that there is an immense quantity of this 

 moss about the rocks of the isle of Aland in the Baltic ; where the good women 

 themselves make a yellow dye with it from a simple decoction of the plant, with- 

 out the addition of any saline article. He adds, that those who would heighten 

 the colour, add a small quantity of roucou § to the decoction. 



6. LiCHENES ERECTI RAMOSI PLANI. 



Such as consist of a firm tough matter, disposed into fiat and thin ramifica- 

 tions growing erect, and bearing their scutellae on the edges, surfaces, and at 

 the extremities. 



This division comprehends the fiat branched tree-mosses of authors ; many 

 of the 4th order of Haller's lichens ; the first part of the 2d division of series the 

 2d inDillenius; and the platisma of Hill. The plants of this division grow 

 upon old trees, especially in thick and unfrequented woods ; some of them on 

 rocks : they are many of them extremely common in England on all kinds of 

 trees. As they were some of the most obvious, so they were some of the first 

 lichens noticed by the old writers, by whom they were called Hellenes arborum. 

 The mosses of this order were substituted instead of the usnea in the composition 

 of the pulvis cyprius. The very species, which was most frequently used for 

 this purpose, was the channel -leaved lichenoides of Dillenius, || on account of 

 its being easily reduced into a fine powder, of a good white colour. Yet others 

 are doubtless as well adapted to the same purposes : and if it was of importance 

 enough to employ them to any purposes of the like nature in our own country, 

 they might be procured in sufficient plenty. 



One of the plants of this order is applicable to the same uses as the Canary- 

 weed, and is reckoned not much inferior to it : and as it is found in the same 

 places, it is very often packed up with it in considerable quantities. Dillenius 



• Park Theat. Botan. p 1315. — Orig. f Raii Hist. Plant, p. Il6\— Orig. 



X Flor, Lappon. p. 343. V. — Orig. § Otherwise called arnotto. — Orig. 



II Lichenoides coralliforrae rostratum et canaliculatum. Hist. Muse. 170. Lichenoides arboreum 

 ramosum angustioribus cinereo-viresceniibns raniulis. Raii Syn. 75. Lichen calicaris Lin. Spec» 

 Plant. 1146.— Orig. 



VOL. XI. L L 



