96 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
creeps over the grotesque figures and elaborate 
carving on the roofs and pillars of Roslin Chapel, 
near Edinburgh, and gives to the whole an 
exquisitely beautiful and romantic appearance. 
One species, the Lepraria Folithus, is associated 
with many a superstitious legend. Linnzus, in 
his journal of a tour through CEland and East 
Gothland, thus alludes to it :—“ Everywhere near 
the road I saw stones covered with a blood-red 
pigment, which on being rubbed turned into a 
light yellow, and diffused a smell of violets, 
whence they have obtained the name of violet 
stones; though, indeed, the stone itself has no 
smell at all, but only the moss with which it is 
dyed.” At Holywell, in North Wales, the stones 
are covered with this curious lichen, which gives 
them the appearance of being stained with blood ; 
and of course the peasantry in the neighbourhood 
allege, that it is the ineffaceable blood which 
dropped from St. Winifred’s head, when she 
suffered martyrdom on that sacred spot. A 
higher order of lichens (B@omyces) is furnished, 
besides this powdery crust, with solid, fleshy, 
club-shaped fructification like a minute pink 
fungus; while a singularly beautiful genus 
(Calicium), usually of a very vivid yellow colour, 
spreading in indefinite patches over oaks and firs, 
is provided with capsules somewhat like those of 
