SPHEROPHORUS | SPHZROPHORACEX 23 
Thallus shrubby, composed of upright stalks, irregularly 
branched, the cortical layer cartilaginous, smooth and shining, 
the central medullary layer white and rather soft. Apothecia 
terminal on the primary stalks or branches, innate in the swollen 
tips, globose or subglobose, the surrounding thallus at length 
bursting irregularly ; sporal mass copious, black ; paraphyses 
slender ; asci 8-spored, evanescent; spores globose, simple, with 
a dark-coloured epispore. Spermogones terminal, punctiform, 
black ; spermatia oblong, pleurogenous, on short-celled tissue-like 
sterigmata lining the walls of the spermogone. 
1. S. melanocarpus Scher. in Meisner’s Naturwiss. Anzeiger, 
v. p. 43 (1821).—Thallus shrubby, erect, irregularly branched, 
whitish (K—, medulla I—), the branches short, compressed, 
much divided, naked, more or less laterally and minutely 
fibrillose. Apothecia moderate in size, oblique, globose-depressed, 
the covering thallus torn and the disc at length open; spores 
globose, 7-11 » in diameter.—S. compressus Ach. Meth. p. 135 
(1803) ; Hook. Fl. Scot. ii. p. 67 & in Sm. Engl. FI. v. p. 232; 
S. F. Gray Nat. Arr. i. p. 487 ; Turn. & Borr. Lich. Brit. p. 115; 
Mudd Man. p. 264; Cromb. Lich. Brit. p. 15 ; Leight. Lich. FI. 
p- 49; ed. 3, p. 48. 8S. coralloides var. compressum Tayl. in 
Mackay FI. Hib. ii. p. 83 pro parte. Lichenoides non tubulosum, 
ramulis scutellis nigris terminatis Dill. in Ray Syn. ed. 3, p. 66, 
n. 15 (1724). Coralloides alpinum Dill. Hist. Muse. p. 116, t. 17, 
fig. 34c (1741). Lichen melanocarpus Swartz Prodr. Descr. Veg. 
p. 147 (1788). L. fragilis Sm. Engl. Bot. t. 114 (1793) (non L.). 
Exsicc. Dicks. Hort. Sicc. Fasc. 8, n. 23; Johns. n. 170; 
Larb. Lich. Hb. n. 2U5 ; Mudd n. 254. 
The description by Swartz of the compressed branches is too 
characteristic to leave any doubt as to the identity of his plant. The 
thallus is normally whitish, but, in most places, the branches are 
occasionally a greenish-grey, and sometimes tinged with red. The 
spermogones, rare on British specimens, are tuberculose, brownish- 
black, situated on the main branches, rarely on the fibrille, and with 
minute ellipsoid spermatia, 3 » long, 1 » thick. 
Hab, On rocks and boulders in upland tracts.—Distr. General, 
though not common, throughout the British Isles —B. M. Island of 
Guernsey; Dartmoor, Devon; Ardingly, Sussex; High rocks near 
Tunbridge Wells, Kent; Aberdovey and Dolgelly, Merioneth; Crom- 
ford Moor, near Matlock, Derbyshire; Farndale, Yorkshire; Tees- 
dale, Durham ; Wark, Northumberland; Black Craig, New Galloway ; 
Barcaldine, Lorne, Argyll; The Trossachs and Loch Tay, Perthshire ; 
Countesswells Wood, near Aberdeen ; Lochaber, Invernessshire ; Tore 
Mt. and Cromaglown, Kerry; Diamond Mt., Connemara, Galway ; 
Achill Island, Mayo. 
2. 8. globosus A. L. Sm.—Thallus unequally and somewhat 
loosely branched, ascending, greyish-white or reddish-brown 
(K—, medulla I + bluish), the branches numerous, rather short, 
with compound lateral fibrille. Apothecia globose, moderate in 
