168 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
soils. The Iceland moss is the only species of 
lichen which has retained its place in modern 
pharmacy, as a tonic and febrifuge in ague ; but it 
is now principally employed, when added to soups 
and chocolate, as a palliative to consumption, and 
as an article of diet in the sick-room, and is being 
gradually superseded by the more nourishing pro- 
ductions of foreign countries. 
It may seem strange that lichens should be em- 
ployed in perfumery, considering that in them- 
selves they are entirely destitute of odour, but 
such nevertheless is the case. The ancients ap- 
pear to have been in the habit of using exten- 
sively a species of white filamentous lichen called 
Usnech, which grew upon trees in the islands 
of the East Indian Archipelago, St. Helena, and 
Madagascar, and exhaled, when moistened, an 
exceedingly agreeable fragrance, somewhat re- 
sembling musk or ambergris. This odour it may 
have derived from the spice trees on which it was 
produced. Among the Arabian physicians it was 
once in high repute when macerated in wine, as a 
cordial and soporific. So late as the seventeenth 
century, some of the filamentous lichens were sold 
in the shops of barbers and perfumers under the 
name of Usnea, and they formed the basis of a 
celebrated fragrant powder for the toilet, called 
Corps de Cypre gris or Cyprio, which is still manu- 
