Art. X. — Additions to the Lichen Flora of Queensland. 

 By James Stirton, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 



[Contributed by the Rev. J. E. Tenison- Woods, F.G.S., Sept. 9th, 1880.] 



I AM mainly indebted to Mr. F. M. Bailey, of the Queensland 

 Museum, Brisbane, for the materials of this paper. A small 

 proportion has been contributed by Mr. Hugh Paton, of 

 Glasgow, while on a tour through Southern Australia. Mr. 

 Bailey's collections are chiefly from the neighbourhood of 

 Brisbane, although on several occasions he extended his 

 excursions many miles into the interior and along the coast. 

 Considerable difficulty has been experienced in the discrimi- 

 nation of species, and this has arisen, for the most part, from 

 two causes — first, from the close affinities of the species to 

 those of different and distant localities, whose extremes may 

 be stated to be South Africa on the one side, and the Eastern 

 Archipelago on the other. In several instances, indeed, I 

 have been obliged to leave the determination in abeyance 

 until a more extended series of specimens shall have enabled 

 me to settle the question of specific distinction, or to merge 

 them into others known and determined ; second, from 

 defect or excess (so to speak) of development. While this 

 difficulty has to be encountered more or less in all tropical 

 and sub-tropical lichens, it is enhanced in a much greater 

 degree than usual in those from Queensland. The causes at 

 work likely to produce this condition of things have strongly 

 excited my curiosity. In the absence, however, of the 

 knowledge of well-ascertained atmospheric conditions I 

 have endeavoured, by a sort of reflex process, to construct 

 atmospheric peculiarities likely to give rise to the curious 

 interruptions to the vegetative processes of lichens from 

 Brisbane. 



The first and main presumption is, that the rainy season 

 (if there is such properly so called) is frequently interrupted 

 by clear, bright, dry days. Now such interruptions, however 

 favourable to plants rooting in the soil, are adverse to a con- 

 tinuous development of lichens whose growth is nearly 

 entirely dependent on atmospheric moisture and heat. 



