520 DR. LINDSAY ON NEW-ZEALAND LICHENS. 
sentatives of this genus may be looked for. So far as we at present know, the genus is 
certainly extremely rare in the temperate and frigid regions of the southern as con- 
trasted with similar countries in the northern hemisphere. The species abound in the 
arctic and cold parts of Europe* and America; and they are also distributed over many 
temperate, and even tropical countries (Peru and India—in the latter occurring, how- 
ever, on the mountains, where they frequently have a great altitudinal range). U. poly- 
phylla is one of the species which occur at low elevations in Scotland; so that it must 
be regarded as equally lowland and montane; and it is widely spread over Europe, 
America, and Asia. 
Genus IV. NEPHROMA, Ach. (Plate LXI.) [Linds. Spermog. 172, plate ix. figs. 28-34.] 
Sp. 1. N. ANTARCTICUM, Jacq., var. tenue, Nyl. (Fig. 13.) 
On trunks of dead trees, East Taeri bush, Otago : W. L. L.: sterile, fertile, and spermo- 
goniferous. Spores narrowly ellipsoid, 1—4-septate, colourless or pale yellow (a, 5), 0006" 
to 0009” long, *00025" to 0003” broad. Thecæ 8-spored. Hymenium pale blue with 
iodine. Spermogones (where they occur) abundant, marginal, minute roundish brown 
tubercles or teeth, fringing ‘certain thalline lobes, prominently visible on the white 
under surface of the thallus. Spermatia (c) in myriads, atomic, subglobose or oval. 
oblong, about *00006" in diameter, endowed with vivid Brownian movement.  Apothecia 
occur on the same specimens with the spermogones; large, difform, prominent on the 
white underside of the thallus. Thallus (upper surface in sterile forms) resembles in 
colour and smoothness the handsomer forms of Parmelia caperata ; but its smooth white 
underside, with the prominent and very different apothecia and spermogones, at once 
indicate the generic distinction. The plant is uniformly handsomest in its sterile forms. 
I cannot distinguish the Otago plant by any sufficient character from what Nylander 
(Syn. 321) calls Nephromium cellulosum, Ach., as it occurs in Hermite Island, Cape 
Horn (Dr. Hooker, Antarctic Expedition; in my herbarium). The apothecia and their 
contents are identical essentially, as is the sterile thallus—the fertile thallus being larger 
and more fossulate. Spores fusiform, 3-septate, brown. Thecæ and paraphyses shortish, 
not blue with iodine. Tips of paraphyses of a dark-brown colour, wbich extends down- 
wards to their base. This coloration of the spores and paraphyses is common in the old 
state of the apothecia in many of the higher or foliaceous lichens, e.g. the Stiete and 
Peltigere ; and the non-reaction with iodine of the lichenine of the thec and hymenium 
points also to the fact that the apothecia in these specimens are old and becoming dege 
nerate. The fertile thallus is the siteo f a parasitie Microthelia, M. Alectorie (Linds. 
Spermog. 135, plate i. figs. 12, 13). 
Nor does Nephroma arcticum; Fr., (Fig. 14,) [Nyl. Syn. 316,] as it occurs in herbarum 
Kew, appear to differ in good characters from N. antarcticum or from various specie f 
spores (a, b) are virtually the same, fusiform or narrowly ellipsoid, 3-septate, brow? s 
age (b), -0006" to 0008” long, 00016” broad. Indeed Nylander's subdivision of t 
a of Northern 
* They are profasely distributed in Norway for instance: vide “Contributions to the Lichen-flor 
Europe," Journal of Linnean Society (Botany), vol. ix. p. 380. 
