26 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



It shares this peculiarity with Funaria hygrometrica, a. moss that 

 grows only in places where something has been burnt. And one is 

 led to speculate why such plants should have abandoned what 

 must have been their original wild habitat, and have accommodated 

 themselves to artificial conditions entirely different. B. rufus 

 is not so common in this district as B. roseus, though elsewhere 

 it is the prevailing form. I found only a few specimens in fruit on 

 the upper side of the woodland path beyond Essachossan. On 

 the edges of the peat-bogs on the hill behind Auchnabreck B. icma- 

 dophila, which differs from its congeners in the flesh-coloured 

 fruit being stemless and flat (like the apothecia of a Lecidea or of 

 a Lecanora) on the thallus, grows in great profusion, making the 

 dark turf hoary with its wide-spreading patches. 



Of ParmeliaB there is an abundance of the usual species in 

 the locality. Physcia aquila, which is characteristic of rocky 

 shores on our sea-coasts, is rather rare in this neighbourhood. 

 I have met with only a few small specimens on the rocks a little 

 way from the town, facing the sea. Parmelia COnspersa is 

 common on the upland rocks ; and some specimens grow on a 

 rock-surface at the Muir Farm Cottage, where several much 

 worn cup-marks may be seen, made for libations in prehistoric 

 times, the only example in this locality. P. caperata grows on 

 several trees in the avenues, but is by no means common. One 

 of the most frequent species in the district is P. laevigata. 

 This form is rare in the eastern and central parts of Scotland. It 

 seems to be characteristic of the west, and to occur in greatest 

 luxuriance on the shores of the western sea-lochs. It is one of the 

 lichens that help to give an Atlantic type to the lichen flora of 

 Inveraray. It is found abundantly on almost all the trees in the 

 High Preserves and in the birch woods around Essachossan. It 

 has two special varieties. One is larger and looser in its 

 attachment, and of a blue-grey tinge, the margins of the much- 

 divided lobes being turned up and covered frequently with mealy 

 white soredia ; the other variety is more closely applied to 

 mossy trees and stones, is of a thinner texture and of a pale 

 yellowish-green, also with lobes more divided and destitute of 

 soredia. The latter variety seems an intermediate form between 

 the typical plant and P. endochlora. The general appearance is so 

 like P. endochlora that one has to scrape the upper surface to see 

 whether the medulla is yellow or white before one can confidently 



