STEREOCAULON. 



261 



Nat. Ord. XL CLAD ON I A CJEJE. 



Fam. Char. Thallus crustaceous or microphvlline, sending up 

 vertical, solid or hollow, simple or ramose, stems. Apothecia 

 solid, turbinate or spherical, normally stipitate, destitute of a 

 proper exciple, or having a scyphuliform one, (Name probably 

 from /oVaSos, a branch or twig of a tree, in allusion to the form 

 of the vertical thallus.) 



Genus I. STEKEOCAULON, Schreb. 



Gen. Char. Thallus tartareous, granulose. Stipes solid, simple 

 or ramose, having a dense, leathery cortical layer, often covered 

 with wart-like, granulose or squamulose growths. Apothecia ce- 

 phaloid, immarginate, having no proper exciple, brown, solid, 

 seated on the extremity of the stem or of its dilated ramules. 

 (Name from o-repcos, solid, and kolvXos, a stem.) 



Its fructification approximates this genus to Leciclea. Its 

 vegetative system, along with that of Usnea, Cladonia, and 

 Sp/iterop/wron, more nearly resembles the general appearance 

 of phanerogamic plants than any other Lichen-genera. The 

 spermogones in this genus, in position, resemble those of 

 Cladonia. Those of S. paschale are to be looked for, in the 

 form of small brown tuberculose granules, near the apo- 

 thecia. The spermatia are straight or slightly curved and 

 linear. 



