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LICHEN NOTES No. 5.* 
Remarks on Nomenclature and Three New Names. 
G. K. Merrill. 
The very full explication given to the genus Ramalina in Nylander’s 
Recognitio Monographica Ramalinarum, provided for lichenists a treatise 
whose value is scarcely impaired by the lapse of years. Naturally the 
names of some of the species have met with revision, investigation has 
resulted in some elisions, and a few of the forms remain unrecognized except 
by the great lichenist himself; but the comprehensiveness of the work is 
conceded, it is exceedingly usable, and its disposition of species has in the 
main been followed by later writers. The late Prof. E. Tuckerman is a nota- 
ble exception however, giving us in his Synopsis Pt. I, 1882, an entirely dif- 
ferent view of the genus with respect to some of the specific affinities and 
names. Differing from Nylander in that author’s disposition of the Rama- 
lina calicaris, Ramalina rigida and Ramalina pusilla groups, in R. cali- 
caris he follows the thought of the elder Fries. R. rigida is made to stand 
for several of Nylander’s names, and in R. pusilla he totally differs from 
the accomplished monographist. It is not easy to determine why Tucker- 
man adopted the view of Fries with respect to the R. calicaris group, for its 
forms are so protean that it is only by attentively studying the minuter dif- 
ferences that a clear understanding is arrived at. Nor is it comprehensible 
that clarity is aided by the reduction of the many and strikingly dissimilar 
forms allied to R. rigida to one species. There can be no question but 
what the labor of determining species is minimized by conservatism of Tuck- 
erman’s sort, but who is satisfied with a moderate understanding of a sub- 
ject under investigation, if a broader or more detailed comprehension is 
obtainable. Nylander has been accused of triviality of diagnosis in his 
separation of Ramalina forms, and it is to be conceded that he made use of 
every last character that analysis could seize upon. But if trivial facts of 
diagnosis are found to be typical and constant, no better confirmation of 
opinion is needed, and no reason exists for disavowing a thing merely 
because it is trivial. 
The names made use of in the following notes to designate species and 
varieties are either such as have escaped revision since the publication of 
Nylander’s Monograph, or the product of historical recasting. American 
students will have no difficulty in properly referring their R. calicaris forms 
now identified in Tuckerman’s sense, if it be remembered that R. fastigiata 
and R. fraxinea must have curved spores, and R. calicaris , with its varie- 
ties and R. farinacea straight spores. 
*Lichen Notes No. I, Bryologtst, 8: Nov. 1905, No. II, Bry. 9: Jan. 1906, No. Ill, Bry. 
9: July, ijo6, “Chemical Tests,” No. IV, Bry. 9: Sept. 1906. 
