124 DR LAUDER LINDSAY ON THE SPERMOGONES AND PYCNIDES 
capsule or walls of the spermogone, as digitate prolongations. This capsule or 
envelope is of a tissue, which is either pale yellow or colourless. 
Specimen 4.—Var. hirta. On the white oak of California. Collected by Mr 
DricutTon, 1857. The ramuscles are roughened over with warts, which, however, 
are chiefly sorediiferous. The spermogones are sparingly scattered about the tips 
of the ramuscles as elongated, flattish, pale warts, with ostioles of the same colour 
as the thallus. The sterigmata are very delicate and indistinct, of single, linear, 
elongated cells, subdigitately ramose at base. No free spermatia were found, the 
spermogones being chiefly old. 
Specimen 5.—Rio Janeiro, 1846-51. Sent to Henry Paut, Esq. <A few sper- 
mogones occur on the long and abundant cilia proceeding from the margins 
of the apothecia, as well as on the ramuscles diverging at right angles from the 
main branches of the thallus. They are either distinctly tuberculated, or they 
merely form fusiform swellings of the filiform ramuscles. The ostioles are pale 
and large; the tissue surrounding them still paler. 
Specimen 6.—Ceylon. Waker. In Hookerian Herb., Kew. Scattered about 
the tips of the ramuscles are tubercles, with pale brown disk-like ostioles, resem- 
bling young apothecia; these appear to be spermogones; but they are old, and 
contain no free spermatia. ‘The tubercles are generally surrounded by a pale collar 
or ring of thallus. The last two specimens both belong to the var. florida, Fr. 
GENUS II. Neuropocon, Nees and Flot. 
The only species of this genus, V. melaxanthus, resembles the Usnea florida, 
Ach., than which, however, it is much stronger, coarser, and more deeply coloured. 
This is only what we should expect from its habitat and geographical distribution, 
the genus being peculiar to the arctic and antarctic regions. The fruit, which is 
abundant, and the spores, are those of Usnea barbata, while the spermatia and 
sterigmata are similar, though somewhat longer. Instead of being tubercles, the 
spermogones constitute irregular fusiform swellings of the tips of the ultimate 
ramuscles, which are very black. These swellings are dotted over with minute 
perforations, which are the ostioles of the confluent compound spermogones. I 
can see no valid reason for dissociating U. melaxanthus as a genus from Usnea, nor 
from another closely allied lichen, which NyLANDER places in Alectoria, A. Taylori, 
and which has precisely similar spermogones, though the thallus is somewhat 
more simple. 
Sprcigs 1. U. melaxanthus, Ach. 
Specimen 1.—Hermite Island, Cape Horn. Antarctic Expedition, 1839-43. 
Dr Hooxer. The plant has a deep brownish-red colour, and very black apices, 
which contain the peculiar spermogones above described. The envelope of the 
spermogones is of a pale brown cellular tissue. The spermatia are delicate needles, 
