86 



NOTES ON LICHENS IN NEW SOUTH WALES 



appeared to a person acquainted chiefly with the Victorian field, 

 may be of interest. 



I was struck with the foreign look of the higher forms of the 

 lichens, even of those which on closer examination were found to 

 be old acquaintances. A slight difference in color or in shape, a 

 fuller development in some and a more stunted growth in others, 

 the absence or rarity of forms which are common in Victoria, the 

 greater frequency of varieties not so often found in the southern 

 colony, and the presence of some kinds quite unknown to me 

 previously, all gave an aspect of strangeness which made me feel 

 that I was in a foreign field. 1 was much struck by the fact that 

 several lichens whieh I had found only in East Gippsland, near 

 Lake's Entrance, were found by me also in New South Wales. 

 I understand that it is the same with many phanerogamous plants ; 

 and that, in fact, the botany of East Gippsland assimilates rather 

 to that of New South Wales than to that of Victoria. It also 

 came within my own experience that one at least of the insects of 

 East Gipnsland, which I met nowhere else in Victoria, is to be 

 painfully met with in New South Wales. A certain ixodes or tick 

 transfers itself from the scrub to the clothing, and thence to the 

 neck, where its puncture sets up an irritation that lasts for weeks. 

 This wretched animal took away much of the pleasure of lichen- 

 hunting in the scrub in both of these fields. 



Owing to the dryness of the climate and the crumbling nature 

 of the sandstone rocks at the places visited, the lichen flora is 

 comparatively poor ; but, although the individual plants are not so 

 numerous, they represent many species. 



For Lichince I searched along the coast in vain. Collema 

 leucocarpum and Synechoblastus nigrescens I found less luxuriant 

 than in Victoria. Leptogium tremelloides, found at Waterfall, is- 

 common, and similar to the Victorian form of it, azureum. Another 

 Leptogium found there I have not yet determined. Of Myriangia 

 I was disappointed in not finding any specimen. They are 

 common in Queensland, and not rare in Victoria. One Sphinctrina> 

 which I got at Waterfall, is a variety of Nylander's microcephala> 



