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Notes on a Collection of Lichens by the late Mr J. Hardy. 

 Communicated to the Club, at Mr A. H. Evans' request, 

 by Rev. H. P. Reader, Hawksyard Priory, Staffordshire. 



The gift, generously made to me by the Berwickshire 

 Naturalists' Field Club, of a collection of lichens found by 

 the late Mr J. Hardy, was accompanied by a request that I 

 should communicate to the Club a paper thereon. Accordingly 

 I have drawn up the following notes, after having carefully 

 examined the specimens received. 



The plants are mostly well "collected" — no easy thing 

 to do in the case of saxicolar lichens. Mr Hardy, however, 

 seems to have been an adept at the use of hammer and 

 chisel, even where the material to be dealt with was granite ! 

 This, and the fair preservation of most of the specimens, 

 makes one perhaps regret the more that so many of them 

 are unlocalized and undated. Where dates and localities are 

 given, I have usually thought it advisable to cut out the 

 note and fasten it on with the mounted specimen, seldom 

 feeling sure of interpreting rightly Mr Hardy's somewhat 

 difficult handwriting and peculiar forms of abbreviation. 

 Were I personally acquainted with the district in which he 

 botanized, no doubt these difficulties would be much reduced. 



Mr Hardy seems to have flourished in the palmy days 

 of British lichenology ; amongst his personal friends or 

 correspondents being the names of Dr Lindsay, the Rev. 

 Hugh Macmillan, Mr W. Mudd, Mr J. G. Baker, and of 

 others, who studied these plants with an ardour and interest 

 which seems sadly to have flagged amongst British botanists 

 of late years. Such of his specimens as are vouched for 

 by any of the above-named authorities will, of course, be 

 correctly named. Where he himself is responsible for names, 

 I have submitted the specimens to further examination, 

 since it seems pretty clear to me that Mr Hardy was often 

 content to name these plants from inspection, and without 

 reference to details only to be perceived by the aid of 

 the microscope and yet of the utmost importance, as for 

 instance the spores. With these few remarks as preface, I 

 proceed to enumerate the lichens : — 



