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SOME VACATION LICHENS 



George L. Moxley 



Last summer I took my vacation in the latter part of August and early 

 in September. I had for some time wanted to learn the nature of the vege- 

 tation of the Topanga region late in the season and this was a most excellent 

 time to study it, as it was really the dry end of the third dry season. Finding 

 very little to interest me in the way of ferns and flowering plants, I turned my 

 attention to the collection of some of the lichens of the region. 



Topanga Canyon was one of Dr. H. E. Hasse's collecting grounds and he 

 had a ranch in the canyon at one time. About five miles from the ocean the 

 canyon forks, Topanga Canyon proper turning somewhat to the west and Gara- 

 pito Canyon, up which the paved highway goes, keeping to the north. The 

 Camp where I stayed is about a mile up Garapito Canyon above the forks. 

 The east wall of the canyon, at this point, is mostly of volcanic rock and the west 

 side of a soft gray sandstone. 



One plant which I wish to especially mention has intrigued me for some 

 time. I have collected it in canyons on the north slope of Mt. Hollywood, 

 Los Angeles, and found it in the Topanga region, always growing on Quercus 

 agrifolia. In its habit of growth it is quite like a lichen, but it has no cortex 

 and, up to 3 or 4 cm. in diameter, looks very much like a pure white mass of fungal 

 hyphae. Larger plants are darker colored in the middle portion. Two or 

 three years ago I sent some material of this to a correspondent for identification 

 but had no reply. Later I sent some to Stanford University, but no one there 

 was working with the lichens and it remained undetermined. Mr. Plitt's com- 

 ment on the plant was: "Do not know. Probably a fungus. Follow it up if 

 you can." So I sent material to Mr. C. G. Lloyd, of Cincinnati, to see what 

 he would make of it, and his reply was: "I really think the specimen you en- 

 close . . . is a lichen and not a fungus. I have made a section of it and 

 find it is full of chlorophyll and chlorophyll is not supposed to occur in a true 

 fungus." He then suggested that I send it to Dr. Bruce Fink for his opinion, 

 which I did, including all my remaining material, but have had no reply as 

 yet. The fresh plant very much resembles an illustration of Radulum quer- 

 cinum in a paper on that genus by Mr. Lloyd (The Genus Radulum, p. 5, fig. 

 972. 1917), but the likeness may be only superficial. I shall try to secure a 

 quantity of material of this interesting plant the coming season, and if any of 

 the Sullivant Moss Society's specialists desire to run it down I will be glad to 

 hear from them. 



Since I wished to keep the weight of my collections as small as I conveni- 

 ently could, I collected very few of the rock-loving lichens. In the accom- 

 panying list I follow the systematic arrangement in Hasse's "Lichen Flora of 

 Southern California." I have included some later collections, but, if no lo- 

 cality is mentioned, the specimens came from the Topanga region. My thanks 

 are due Mr. C. C. Plitt for the determination of most of my specimens. 



