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THE REDISCOVERY OF PARMELIA LOPHYREA 
ACHARIUS. 
BY LINCOLN W. RIDDLE. 
[Presented at SuIIivant Moss Society Meeting, Minneapolis, Dec. 28, 1910.] 
In the autumn of 1908 our indefatigable fellow-member Mr. A. S. 
Foster, who is doing such keen and discriminating collecting in the 
northwestern United States, sent me a small package of Cetrarias 
and Parmelias. Some time elapsed before I examined the plants. 
When a study of the material was made, however, a peculiar species 
of Parmelia was found, with characters so distinctive that there was 
little difficulty in tracing it down to Parmelia lophyrea Acharius. The 
history of this species is of sufficient interest to be recounted here. 
Between 1795 and 1800 the English expedition for the exploration 
of the Pacific, under the command of Vancouver, carried as naturalist 
the Scottish surgeon, Archibald Menzies. Menzies collected plants 
along the greater part of our Pacific coast, and his labors were richly 
rewarded by the discovery of many new species in this interesting 
region. The lichens of his collection appear to have fallen into the 
hands of several students, the bulk of them being sent to Acharius. 
then in the prime of his activities. Among the material was a 
Parmelia which Acharius recognized as new and called by the name 
indicated above (Methodus Lichenum p. 198. 1803). Some years 
later a portion of Menzies’ material was studied by Thomas Taylor, 
an associate of Sir William Hooker in the publication of the classic 
“Muscologia Brittanica ” (1828). Evidently Taylor did not know of 
Acharius’ Parmelia lophyrea for he called the same plant Parmelia 
cribellata (Journal of Botany, p. 641. 1847). We have the authority 
of Nylander (Lichenes Scandinaviae in Not. Sallsk. Faun. Plor. Fenn. 
5:104. 1861) for the statement that the two names are synonymous. 
The specimens on which Taylor’s name was based are preserved in 
his herbarium at the Boston Society of Natural History and a com- 
parison of Mr. Foster’s material with Menzies’ original specimens 
proves their identity beyond a doubt. 
The most interesting point comes in the fact that apparently the 
species has never been found since the original collection until the 
recent discovery of the plant by Mr. Foster. In a letter under date 
of Nov. 16, 1909, Mr. Foster gives the following information in re- 
gard to the stations for the species: — “ F. lophyrea was found in one 
restricted locality on Point Peterson, north end of the Westport 
peninsula (Washington), entrance to Gray’s Harbor, south side where 
the northwest winds of summer are always cold ; also one other 
station on the Wishkah River where the moist winds over the water 
supplied the desirable moisture.” 
The restricted distribution together with the small size and incon- 
spicuousness of the species undoubtedly accounts for its having been 
overlooked for over a century. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. 
