30 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



external appearance ; and subsequent lichenologists have had no oppor- 

 tunity of examining the extremely rare apothecia of A. lanuginosum. On 

 this account, Nylander says, the genus cannot be fully defined with certainty. 

 And hence the definition hitherto received has now to be revised in the 

 light of the present species. In this light I offer a few comments on Dr. 

 Nylander's description of the sub-tribe Amphilomei and its only genus, 

 Amphiloma, as follows : — 



He describes the colour of the thallus whitish or cincrascent. To this 

 we must now add - or glaucescent. He describes the thallus as " mem- 

 branaceous, lobate or monophyllo-lobate, soft and superficially pulverulent 

 or altogether quasi pulverulento-membranaceous." This I would amend by 

 simply calling it superficially quasi pulverulent ; for, while the first look of 

 the thallus suggests a thin parmelia, with its surface mouldy or chalky, the 

 use of the lens reveals that this appearance is due to a fine short nap pro- 

 duced by the protrusion of the elementary filaments of which the thallus is 

 composed. Nylander continues : — " It contains true granula gonima, and, 

 being destitute of epithallus and cortical stratum, exhibits a lax texture 

 wholly filamentoso floccose, composed of fine filamentose elements 

 implexed and ramose. In the two species of this sub-tribe the apothecia of 

 the one are unknown, and of the other are lecanorine. Spores six or eight in 

 the ascus, uniseptate, shortly fusiform." We must now add "or ellipsoideo- 

 oblong." He continues : — " Spermogones not yet seen." 



Comparing the new plant with the descriptions of the two other species, 

 we find specific differences in the colour of its thallus both above and 

 below, in the shape and size of its gonidia, in the colour of the epithecium 

 and of the hypothecium, in the shape and size of the spores, and in the 

 colour of the hymenea gelatina when treated with iodine — all which are so 

 well marked as to lead to the decision that Amphiloma glaucescens is a 

 new and very distinct species. 



2. Desckiption of a New Species of Gomphillus. 

 gomphillus b.e0myce0ides. wilson (sp. nov.) 



Thallus cinereous or virescent, effuse, either as though painted, thin and 

 somewhat shining, or thicker eroso-isidioso-granulate, consisting of 

 variously arranged conglutinated filaments and gelatinous sacs containing 

 gonidia of various form and size (diameter about "02 or "01 millimetre.) 

 Apothecia biatorine, occasionally margined with the white hypothecium, 

 scattered or conglomerate, depresso globose, small (diameter up to 1'5 

 m.m.), smooth, rufo-fulvescent, at first almost white, and at length very dark 

 and somewhat deformed, sessile or stipitate ; stipes strong (up to "5 m.m. in 

 diameter and -5 m.m. long), crowned sometimes with two or even three 

 apothecia, and formed of the lengthened and constricted hypothecium, white 

 without and pale amber-fuscescent within. Spores — eight in each cylindrical 

 theca, acicular, filiform, very long and attenuated (about "14 m.m. long), 

 and divided by very many septa. Paraphyses not distinct. Spermatia very 

 minute. 



Found by Kev. F. E. M, Wilson, April, 1886, on the trunk of a tree 

 (Poraaderis apetala), on the bark and on moss, in a thick forest at Bloom- 

 field, Victoria ; also in April and November, 1887, on the trunk of a tree 

 fern, on the roots and mosses and jungermannias and lichens (stictas) in a 

 thick forest. Mount Macedon, Victoria ; and in February, 1888, on the 

 mossy root of a tree, on the earth, dead leaves, etc., in the forest on the 

 Black Spur, Victoria. 



The genus Gomphillus belongs to the series Cladodei (shoot-like lichens) ; 

 but it differs very greatly from the rest of the family, especially in the 

 character of the spores. Dr. Nylander, who named the genus and the only 

 species hitherto known to science, calls it a singular type and a paradoxical 

 exception, and says that it recedes from all others in the anatomical 



