295 



NOTES ON BRITISH LICHENS. 



JOSEPH A. MARTINDALE, 



Staveley, near Kendal, Westinorlaiid. 



There can be no doubt that there is still some considerable amount 

 of confusion among those who in England devote attention to lichens 

 with respect to several species which, from the antiquity of their 

 names, might now be supposed to be well understood ; and the 

 writer of the report of the meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union 

 at Sedbergh, which was published at pages 277-284 of the Naturalist^ 

 will have done good service if his remarks draw the attention of local 

 collectors to the fact that under some ancient name, in several cases, 

 three or four quite diverse plants are commonly united as a single 

 species, and that, in some instances, the form regarded as typical 

 is altogether different from that at first intended by the name. At 

 the same time, the writer himself seems to labour under misconcep- 

 tions, which may to some extent hinder the good he would other- 

 wise do. 



It certainly is not the case, for instance, that there is any practical 

 difference between Leighton's conception of Cladina raiigiferina (L.) 

 and that of Dr. Nylander. There are, no doubt, some slight 

 differences in their diagnoses of this plant and of its near ally 

 C. sylvatica (L.), as appears from a comparison of the descriptions 

 in Leighton's 'Lichen Flora,' pp. 66-67, in Nylander's Synopsis, 

 Vol. i, pp. 2 1 1-2 1 2, but these are, perhaps, more verbal than real. 

 At all events, it is quite evident that Leighton not only accepts both 

 plants as distinct forms, but that he agrees with Dr. Nylander in 

 regarding their differences as specific, and such being the case, 

 neither the one plant nor the other can by any means afford an 

 example of a difference in the names adopted by these distinguished 

 Hchenologists. What confusion, therefore, exists at present in England 

 with respect to these plants cannot proceed from the cause assigned 

 by the writer of the report, but is chiefly due, I believe, to the fact 

 that Hooker, in his ' English Flora,' and Taylor, in Mackay's ' Flora 

 Hibernica,' completely ignored C. sylvatica, a plant which had been 

 kept apart, at least as a variety, by almost every botanist but them- 

 selves since the time of Linnaeus's ' Species Plantarum ' (to say 

 nothing of the more dubious recognition of it by Ray and 

 Dillenius), and which had been regarded as a species by at least one 

 writer of eminence — Hepp, in his ' Lichenen Flora von Warzburg.' 



Where Leighton has indeed erred is in stating that C. ravgiferina 

 is the more common in England of the two ; and it is surely in- 

 consistent to say of plants that they are ' common,' and yet be able 



Oct. 1887. 



