LICHENS. 187 
in the north of Scotland, and has never been seen 
in fructification. It used to be employed in Nor- 
way and Sweden asa cure for jaundice, on account 
of its yellow colour. Another of our finest lichens 
is the Spherophoron coralloides, which grows upon 
mossy rocks in sub-alpine regions, and looks not 
unlike the common coralline of the sea-shore. It 
forms shrub-like tufts of a pale brownish colour 
with grey branches and twigs, and produces fruc- 
tification in the form of a pulverulent black ball 
at the summit of the principal stem. There is an- 
other coralline-like lichen, the Dufourea retiformis 
of New Zealand, perhaps the loveliest of all the 
lichens, which resembles a combination of the 
Flustra membranacea or common sea-mat of our 
sea-shores and the reindeer-moss. Its lace-like 
tufts look as if woven in Nature’s finest loom. 
These two lichens repeat on dry land the idea of 
the corallines of the sea, and show how closely re- 
lated are the alge of the ocean of water to the 
algze of the ocean of the atmosphere. 
Speaking of this curious relationship between 
the cryptogamia of the land and the sea, it is ob- 
vious that lichens must have been the first land 
plants with which the earth was covered when it 
emerged from the primeval waters ; and very pro- 
bably, as was the case with the fern-tribe, these 
primitive lichens may have attained a size and 
