The Scottish Naturalist. 



2 5 



discovered at Inveraray by Admiral Jones. It is very rare in 

 England, Scotland and Ireland ; only one or two localities being 

 reported for it in these countries. I gathered it once before in 

 Glencroe, on a rock in the bank of the stream below the farm- 

 house of Larich Park ; but there I found only a single specimen. 

 It is easily known by its coriaceous much-divided lobes, covered 

 on their rich red-brown upper surface with a profusion of scattered 

 white soredia, which give the lichen a beautiful appearance. The 

 typical form upon which Delise based the species S. intricata, of 

 which S. Thouarsii is a variety, has not yet been observed in 

 Great Britain. Lightfoot seems to have noticed this plant and also 

 S. crocata ; for in his description of the Lichen sylvatica he 

 mentions that on some specimens there are occasionally found 

 yelloiv granules, and on others ivhite, thus supposing them to be 

 two varieties of the common species that he was describing. S. 

 crocata and S. Thouarsii both belong to warm climates, being 

 found in Western Africa, Central America, the West Indies, and 

 the Canary Islands ; and their presence gives to the lichen-flora of 

 Inveraray an Atlantic facies. 



Among the most interesting lichens of the district are those be- 

 longing to the genus Baeomyces. B. roseus occurs sparingly 

 in heathy places on the broken edges of banks, which it covers 

 with a white granulose crust, interspersed with little pink mush- 

 room-like apothecia. It is not a common lichen ; and the 

 fructification is much more infrequent than the characteristic 

 crust. Where it is fully developed it is an exceedingly beautiful 

 species. On the abandoned earthy embankments of the nickel- 

 mine, which was worked for a number of years by the Duke of 

 Argyll, till the vein ran out, it grows in great profusion ; and in 

 one place it is covered to a large extent with myriads of its rosy 

 pin-headed fruits. Especially when the fruits have swollen to a 

 larger size and blushed a deeper red after heavy rains, it is one of 

 the loveliest spectacles upon which the eye of a lichenologist can 

 rest. I have nowhere else seen it in such profusion as in this 

 spot. In South Carolina it was lately found, according to the 

 testimony of a correspondent, in equal abundance. It is curious 

 how this lichen should attach itself to the works of man, for it is 

 never found in the wilds of nature, but only in artificial situations. It 

 is always confined to the bare earthy edges of banks in elevated 

 moorlands or to situations where there has been excavating. 



