( 46 ) 
Berthel. Hist. Nat. Canar. p. 104, t. 6, f. 5. Lecanore sp., Krempelh. 
in Flora, 1851, n. 43. 
Apothecia orbicularia, in thallo saccato-depressa, 1. dein prom- 
inula margineque demisso subcincta. Spore ovoideo-oblonge, sim- 
plices, incolores. Spermatia ellipsoidea; sterigmatibus simplicius- 
culis. Thallus frondoso-squamulosus, mouophyllus, matrici arete 
adnatus, hypothallo obsolescente. Stratum gonimicum e collo- 
gonidiis constitutum. 
The American lichen is either throughout closely applied to the earth 
on which it grows, or often, from the first, elevated at the margins; when 
these turn blackish beneath. Fronds, especially of the latter sort, reach- 
ing now 3™- in the longest diameter, exhibit finally a well-marked loba- 
tion. Apothecia either sunken, when a thalline rim constitutes a spurious 
margin, or quite flat and wholly immarginate, or finally superficial, with, 
if I mistake not, a thin, depressed entire, true margin, of the substance 
of the thallus. Such were certainly to be expected, as in Solorina, in the 
cease of sufficiently elevated fruit. More rarely also I find, in repeated 
instances, such superficial apothecia becoming turgid and thus immargi- 
nate in the sense, and with the whole look of cephaloid Biatora fruit. 
Spermogones (not heretofore described) have been observed by me, only 
on otherwise sterile fronds (with the whole structure, as well as the exact 
habit of fertile ones from the same region) collected in Texas (Wright). 
They are scarcely other than solitary, and mostly central, in the fronds, 
and appear as rather conspicuous, minute tubercles, of the colour of the 
thallus; clothed within with slender, sub-simple (that is, simple, or at 
length, if I do not mistake, very sparingly branched) sterigmas, bearing 
exceedingly minute, ovoid-ellipsoid spermatia. 
It is impossible to deny the evident points of agreement between this 
little lichen and Solorina saccata Vv. spongiosa, Nyl.; but the former is not 
referable to Solorina, nor easily to Peltigere’. The family last named 
approaches indeed very closely, in the anatomical structure of the thallus, 
to Pannariei ; but Schwendener appears to incline, on the whole, to 
recognize a predominant Pannarieine affinity in Heppia ; as had already 
been done by Nylander. It needs in fact nothing but a sufficient reduc- 
tion of the thallus, (of which reduction some of my American specimens 
appear to afford indications) to endue the finally superficial, or cephaloid 
apothecia with all the aspect of a Pannaria; akin, one might perhaps 
well venture to say, to P. byssina. 
H. Despreausii (Mont. 1.¢. sub Solorina) first detected in the Canaries, 
and afterwards recognized by Montagne in Ohio specimens (ea) is found, 
not rarely, growing on the earth, from New England to Texas, as on cal- 
careous pebbles in Kansas (E. Hall) and is the only known expression of 
this generical type: the European H. adglutinata (Krempelh.!) Mass. 
Lich. Ital. n. 157! Koerb.! Parerg. 1. c., affording no differences. 
