( If! ) 
durable article of traffic. They are a grateful 
food to goats, as well as to the rein-deer. 
That beautiful vegetable called the cup- 
mofs is the lichen pyxidatus, or box-lichen- 
There is great difficulty in afcertaining the 
fpecies or varieties of the numerous plants of 
this genus. According to Hedwig's invefti- 
gations the cup and faucer-like appearances, 
which are found on the various fpecies of 
lichen, are to be efteemed the feed-bearing 
flowers; and the notches, and warts with 
black tops, thofe which contain the ftamens. 
He alferts, that the fringes from the lxcherl 
ciliaris, fringed lichen, which take root, and 
the downy matter on the furface, have no- 
thing to do with the real parts of fructifica- 
tion. He gives very particular accounts of 
thefe parts, with plates of feveral genera of the 
algas tribe ; but the whole of theft plants is 
at prefent fo little underftood, that it is not 
eafy to give any accurate information con- 
cerning them. It is poffible that too perti- 
nacious an inquiry after the mode of feminal 
reproduction in all the orders of the Crypto- 
gamia clafs may tend to retard rather than 
accelerate our knowledge on the fubjeci. 
The plant called fea-wrack is of the algas 
tribe* 
