536 DR LAUDER LINDSAY ON NEW LICHENICOLOUS MICRO-FUNGI. 



lecidioid, convex, scabrous — studded over the thallus of the host. Spores 

 brown ; very irregular ; concatenate, or Sarcinate, in groups of 4-woolpack- 

 like masses, similar to those of Sarcina ventrical 7, Goodsir. 



(c) Kinnoull Hill, Perth, May 1856, W. L. L. — Associated with Sguamaria 

 gelida, L. Parasite occurs on an areolate, white, crustaceous thallus, sterile 

 of apothecia, referable, doubtless, to some Lccanora. The Coniothecium has 

 quite the aspect of some species of Microthelia, e.g., M. rimosicola, Leight. 

 Spores chestnut-brown ; have the appearance of portions of cellular tissue,* 

 composed of irregular, subcubical cellules, 



(/) Barmouth, N. Wales, June 1836, Leighton (sub-nom. Spiloma). — Referred 

 by Mr Cooke to " Sporidesmium sp." in my Herbarium. 

 H. Not parasitic on, though closely associated with, various saxicolous lichens. 

 Roadside between Sligachan and Portree, Skye, Aug. 1856, W. L. L. 



Some at least of the parasites which I have referred to Coniothecium licheni- 

 co/um have apparently been mentioned, if not also described, by various of 

 the earlier lichenologists, under most diverse names. Specimen (d) has the 

 characters of Isidium mierosticticum of " English Botany" and the " Lichenographia 

 Britannica ;" (b) has quite the appearance externally of Spiloma nigrum, Leight. 

 and "English Botany,"! and of Spilomium Graphideorum, Nyl.J A plant from 

 Clapham, Yorkshire, Dr Carrington, is apparently — partly at least — Sclerococcum 

 sphwrale, Fr.; § and Cyphelium (or Acoliuni) corallinum, Hepp Exs. No. 531, 

 and Korber's " Parerga," pp. 299 and 465. Coniothecium lichenicolum agrees 

 also with Variolaria conspurcata, Engl. Bot., tab. 1993 (at least) with the char- 

 acters of the plate. 



Coniothecium lichenicolum has a close resemblance to some forms of Sporides- 

 mium; and it is quite likely that there is a lichenicolous Sporidesmium, hitherto 

 undescribed, for which the specific name lichenicolum would be appropriate. 

 I have not, however, at present sufficient data for determining this. What 

 appears to me to be Con. lichenicolum, occurring on the white, crustaceous, sterile 

 thallus of a Lecanora from Barmouth, N. Wales, Leighton, June 1856 — in my 

 Herbarium — was (as already stated) labelled by Mr Cooke " Sporidesmium sp.'' 

 Two of the lichens of the earlier lichenologists have been transferred by fungo- 

 logists to the genus Sporidesmium, viz , 1. Lepraria nigra, Engl. Bot., t. 2409, of 

 1st edition, which is the Coniothecium effusum, Cd., and the Sporidesmium 



* Vide p. 519 and foot note.* 



t P. 45, tab. 1984, 2d ed., 1843. 



J The specimen of S. Graphideorum, Nyl., contained in my copy of his " Herb. Lich. Paris," No. 

 72 (from Fontainebleau, on a white, mealy thallus — of some Graplds — coating a very rugged bark, 

 and associated with a Hyst&rium), has the external characters, on a large scale, of a Spiloma. Spiloma 

 nigrum, var. variolosum, Turn. & Borr. in Leighton's Exsic. No. 259, closely resembles it, though 

 Leighton's plant is more crowded and more irregular in outline. The French Spilomium is quite 

 visible to the naked eye ; variable in size ; very black ; irregular in outline, though generally 

 round ; sometimes confluent ; surface usually more or less convex and rough, as in Coniothecium, 

 from the projecting powdery or granular spore-masses. The spores are spherical or oval; generally 

 with double contour ; simple ; deep brown ; about •00025" in diameter ; sometimes slightly irregular 

 in outline ; cohering frequently in rouleaux like blood-corpuscles. 



§ = Spiloma sphcerale, Ach., but not Budlia saxatilis, Schser. (Nylander, "Prod." p. 140), ac- 

 cording to Th. Fries (" L. Arct." p. 116). 



