(239 ) 
Apothecia turbinato-lentiformia, stipitata, excipulo proprio fusco- 
nigro 1. atro marginata. Spore e thecis cylindraceis mox ejecte, 
spherice ellipsoidese oblongzeve, simplices 1. bi- rarissime quadrilocu- 
lares, fuscescentes. Spermatia ellipsoidea oblongave, rarius acicu- 
laria; sterigmatibus sub simplicibus. Thallus crustaceus, uniformis 
rarius subsquamulosus, obsoletusve, 1. in parasiticis nullus. 
In restoring his Sphinctrina turbinata (S. O. V. p. 120) to Lichens, 
Fries replaced it in Caliciwm ; and later authors have scarcely succeeded 
in indicating distinguishing characters for their Sphinctrina (the ‘ origi- 
nally closed exciple’ being, as we take it, equally predicable of Calicium) 
beyond the much elongated and bowed spermatia. To judge of this differ- 
ence in the only way we can—by analogy —it seems certainly insufficient ; 
while the remaining assumption that these lichens are separable from 
Calicium as exclusively parasitical is embarrassed by C. microcephalum 
(Sphinctrina Anglica, Nyl.) ‘so exactly similar to C. sessile’ (C. turbinatum, 
Pers.) ‘that we should certainly regard the two plants as the same, did not 
the thallus in C. microcephalum appear really to belong to the pilidia’ 
(Turn. & Borr. Lich. Brit. p. 131) a remark equally applicable to the 
American plant. 
But whether or not we subsume Sphinctrina, De Not., under Calicium, 
the spore-history of the former group, as exhibited by Nylander (Syn. 
p. 142, t. 5) may well serve to explain that of the latter, as here taken; 
the species brought together in Sphinctrina at the place cited offering, at 
once, spherical, ellipsoid, and finally oblong and bilocular spores. As 
Acolium must be allowed to include a species (A. Bolanderi) with spheri- 
cal spores, and ellipsoid ones are not wholly wanting in species of Cyphel- 
ium, De Not. (as in C. chrysocephalum and C. melanopheum) no sufficient 
reason appears for the generical distinction of the group last named; and 
however significant its relations to Contocybe (Chenotheca, sect. 1, Stizenb. 
1. c.) it is even nearer to Calicium. 
Lichens of the present family are distinguishable by the typical 
deformation of the disk from elevated, or stipitate conditions (as Biatora 
chlorosticta, Tuck.; Heterothecium pezizoideum (Ach.) Flot., Lecidea 
flavovirescens (Dicks.) Borr., Helocarpon, Th. Fr.) of the Lecideei. But 
the evolution of the stipe is sometimes imperfect in genuine Calicia, and 
such subsessile states are to be discriminated from the always sessile 
apothecium of Acolium. 
About forty species, or distinct forms of Calicium are reckoned by 
authors, of which six or seven are only known from tropical or subtropical 
regions, where one or two European ones have also been detected; the 
rest arenorthern. Not half of the European Calicia have yet been recog- 
nized here; but we possess several peculiar to the country. 
