226 



POPULAR HISTORY OF LICHENS. 



rangiferina, Peltigera canina, or Marchantia polyniorpha is 

 sufficient to spoil it for dyeing purposes. The Swedes pre- 

 pare from it a red dye, which they call " Bcettelet," and the 

 Welsh peasantry use it in a similar way. This and the pre- 

 ceding species are widely distributed over the world, grow- 

 ing in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. 



c. Apothecia yellow. 



7. Lecanora varia (from varius, changeable). Thallus 

 greenish-yellowy becoming ochroleucous, cartilaginous, ru- 

 gose-granulose ; hypothallus white. Apothecia innate or 

 sessile, yellowish-flesh -coloured, becoming sometimes brown- 

 ish or blackish, with a thin, erect entire margin, which some- 

 times becomes flexuose or crenulate, pulverulent, or covered 

 by the thalamium. (E.B. 1549, var. maculiformis ; E. B. 

 2547, var. aitema.) 



A common and, as its name implies, a protean species, 

 growing on trees, palings, and dead wood in lowland dis- 

 tricts ; some of its varieties, of which there are many, are 

 montane or alpine. It was found by Saussure, Agassiz, and 

 others, on the summits of the Alps. It is frequently abun- 

 dant on the fences of fields and on roadsides. The thallus 

 sometimes becomes pulverulent. The apothecia may be con- 

 cave, flattened, tumid, or convex, minute or large, black and 

 abortive ; its spores resemble those of L. subfusca. 



