Jossklyn Botanical Society 



19 



the field accompanied by some friend, with my resources of 

 wit and conversation exhausted, I hunt up a specimen of the 

 plant and suggest that he taste of it. The effect is to shift 

 the conversational burden at once, and my companion's 

 remarks are usually amusing if not witty. 



High up on the trunk and branches of our tree occur two 

 little Ramalinas, R. calicaris and R. farinacea. The first of 

 these occurred in that dwarfed state of which it is difficult to 

 decide whether to call it an example of the type or of its vari- 

 ation subampliata. The second is that Ramalina form with 

 linear laciniae, beset here and there with rounded granulose- 

 farinose soredia. Both are common throughout the county, 

 and particularly does R. calicaris furnish a bewildering vari- 

 ety of forms absolutely impossible of elucidation from any 

 published source of information. Much has been written on 

 Ramalina, but no American student has tackled the subject 

 yet in the necessarily humble spirit. 



Lecanora subfusca was found in limited patches and in 

 typical condition, and Caloplaca aurantiaca nestled here and 

 there among the larger plants, its golden-colored pulverulent 

 thallus affording a ready mark for identification. 



We now come to a lichen found growing parasitically on 

 the thallus of Parmelia rudecta that is of more than ordinary 

 interest from any angle in which it may be viewed. The 

 plant is one so near the borderland between the lichens and 

 fungi that it has been claimed by the students of both 

 groups. In the system of nomenclature that is here adopted, 

 it receives the name of Buellia parmeliarum, but this is only 

 one of a multiplicity of names that have been applied to it 

 generically. It has been variously distributed in Abrothal- 

 lus, Epiphora, Karschia, Poets chia, Leciographa, Dactylospora, 

 Lecozania, Lichenomyces , Liche?iopeziza, Moneroleckia, Nesole- 

 chia, Phaeothecium, Phymatopsis, Tricharia and Trichoplacia, 

 and so on ad nauseam. In connection with this matter 

 it may be of interest to quote an opinion expressed almost 

 sixty years ago on excessive genera making. The author 

 quoted is W. I,. Lindsay, a man of considerable attain- 

 ments as a lichenist, and one of the first investigators of 

 the lichens by microscopical methods. He says, "I must 



