POPULAR HISTORY OF LICHENS. 



regarded as at best profitless and harmless hobbies; that 

 the collection or examination of " Time- stains" or " Crottles" 

 is considered a wasteful disposal of time and energy. This 

 feeling evidently originates in ignorance of the structural 

 and utilitarian beauties of the family. We shall have occa- 

 sion in the following pages to show that, in regard to its 

 relative position in the scale of vegetable life, this group of 

 plants, humble and insignificant though it appear to be, — 



" Holds a rank 

 Important in the plan of Him who framed 

 This scale of beings ; holds a rank which, lost, 

 Would break the chain and leave behind a gap 

 Which Nature's self would rue — 



that Lichens are of infinite importance as handmaids of 

 Nature in operating her changes on the face of our globe, 

 — in softening down the pointed crags of our mountains, — 

 in covering with fertile soil alike the bare surface of the 

 volcanic lava and the coral islet, — in a word, that they are 

 the basis of soil and consequently of vegetation ; that a 

 small section, which furnishes valuable and familiar dyes, 

 gives rise to an import of the annual value of many thou- 

 sand pounds ; that many others, under the vernacular term 

 " Crottle," have been for ages, and still are, used as house- 



