416 DR LAUDER LINDSAY ON THE 



site the septum, giving them a figure-of-8 form (b) ; occasionally also they are 

 solseform, with one end or half broader, and generally also shorter and rounder, 

 than the other (b.) In the latter case, they resemble the spores of Abrothallus 

 Smithii, Tul. 



17. 0. agelceoides, Nyl., Lich. N.Z., 257 (fig. 19). 



On the trunks of living trees ; Greenisland Bush. 



The thallus is whitish and thin, following the rugosities and furrows of the 

 bark. The lirellse have a general resemblance to those of our common 0. xaria, 

 Pers., which occurs in the North Island (Knight and Mitten), or of 0. sazatilis, DC. 



The thecce are ventricose, -0021" long, and -0006'' broad, 8-spored, and give a 

 < wine-red reaction with iodine. The sp>ores (fig. 19) are fusiform, colourless, poly- 

 septate (frequently 5-septa) ; -0009" long, and -00025" broad. 



18. O. spodopolia, Nyl., Lich. N.Z., 257 (fig. 20). 



On basalt; Shaw's Bay, The Nuggets, mouth of the Clutha. 



Its microscopical characters differ little from those of the preceding species. 

 The spores (fig. 20) are of the same character and dimensions. The thecce are 

 somewhat longer and broader — -0030" long, and -0012" broad— and are unaffected 

 by iodine ; while the hymenial gelatine assumes a very pale wine-red tinge. 



Professor Churchill Babington, in the " Flora Novse Zelandire" of Dr Hooker, 

 remarks on the absence of the large and widely-diffused genus Opegrapha from 

 the Lichen-Flora of New Zealand as one of its marked peculiarities. This state- 

 ment arose evidently from the circumstance that, at the period when he wrote 

 (1855), no species of the genus had been collected in New Zealand, or had been 

 sent home, so as to be accessible for examination in the Kew or other public Her- 

 baria. But Knight and Mitten* have since described several species from the 

 province of Auckland. My Dunedin herbarium contains the three species just men- 

 tioned ; and, I doubt not, the further researches of Botanists, and especially of 

 Lichenologists, accustomed to the detection of minute or microscopic, inconspi- 

 cuous corticolous and saxicolous Lichens, will discover other species of this genus 

 in all parts (of the lowlands at least) of New Zealand. Similar remarks might be 

 made in regard to other Lichen-genera at present supposed to be altogether 

 absent from the Lichen-Flora of New Zealand ; and until, indeed, its Lichen-Flora 

 has been fully investigated by competent resident Botanists, we must be cautious 

 in asserting that any given families, genera, or species are absent, — unless we do 

 so distinctly with the qualification, that our statement is simply provisional, and 

 is intended to direct the attention of local Botanists to the supply of a desideratum 

 in our knowledge of the New Zealand Lichens. 



* " Contributions to the Lichenographia of New Zealand, being an account, with figures, of 

 some new species of Graphidece and allied Lichens." By Dr Knight of Auckland, New Zealand, 

 and W. Mitten, of Hurst-Pierpoint, Sussex (the eminent Muscologist). — Trans. Linnean Soa, 

 London, vol. xxiii. p. 101, plate xii. 



