2 



POPULAR HISTORY OF LICHEKS, 



offer to observers in Natural History an opportunity of con- 

 tributing towards the filling up of a gap, hitherto very con- 

 spicuous, in British Botany, as well as towards the further 

 development of the economical resources of our country. 

 The Lichens may be said to be the only family of the Cryp- 

 togamia which has not met with its due meed of scientific 

 or public attention, and whose natural history has conse- 

 quently hitherto rested on a most insecure and unsatisfactory 

 foundation. They have ever been the acknowledged op- 

 probria of Cryptogamic Botany. The delicate waving frond 

 of the fern is anxiously tended by jewelled fingers in the 

 drawing-rooms of the wealthy and noble ; the rhodosper- 

 mous seaweed finds a place beside the choicest productions 

 of art in the gilt and broidered album ; the tiny moss has 

 been the theme of many a gifted poet ; and even the de- 

 spised mushroom has called forth classic works in its praise. 

 But the Lichens, which stain every rock and clothe every 

 tree, which form 



£e Nature's livery o'er the globe 

 Where'er her wonders range," 



have been almost universally neglected, nay despised. 

 This neglect is to us the more surprising w T hen we consider 

 the facility with which they may be collected, preserved, 



