68 
IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES 
as is done in other plants whose morphological characters are not 
sufficiently differentiated, would have us establish lichen species based 
upon phylogeuy entirely, without any reference to the morphological 
characters of form, size, color, surface markings, etc. It appears to the 
present writer that these botanists think of a lichen as a fungus growing 
upon an alga and therefore irregular and not at all constant in form, much 
after the manner of a corn-smut outgrowth upon the corn plant, a 
witches’ broom, or some abnormal growth upon some host plant, due to 
irritation and hyper-nutrition. 
But to some of us who have studied the morphological characters of 
lichens carefully this view seems quite absurd. For, whatever view one 
may take as to the nature of lichens, careful study demonstrates that 
the morphological characters of lichens are quite as fixed as those of 
most undoubted morphological automonies. However, the peculiar views 
expressed above are suggestive and perhaps worthy of use as a working 
hypothesis in the study of some lichen species. The present writer 
would look with great interest to the results that might come from work 
done in this direction, though he regards the outcome as too hopeless 
to attempt such studies himself. 
But turning to some very different considerations, it appears that 
many of our so-called taxonomic, lichen species are compound concep- 
tions rather than real species. To the mind of the present writer, even 
a taxonomic species, used as a basis in classification, should attempt to 
be a real entity, not a compound idea as is that of family or order. It 
is well known that the lichenists are not the only people who have had 
crude ideas as to species, for such compound species are well known 
even to the workers in spermaphytic taxonomy. But we may eliminate 
all this from the present discussion, and confine attention to the lichens. 
Whether we may ever be able to discover real elementary species, in the 
de Vriesian sense, among such slow-growing plants as the lichens is 
not certain, but we should at least attempt to bring about a much better 
taxonomic, working basis. 
Instances of bad work in taxonomic outlines of lichen species are not 
far to seek. There comes to mind, on account of the present writer’s 
recent studies of the genus Cladonia, instances from Wainio’s “Mono- 
graphia Cladoniarum Universalis”, a work in which one might reasonably 
expect better results. Witness the so-called species Cladonia fimhriata, 
to which the author devotes more than one hundred pages, giving a 
multitude of varieties and forms, the specific conception being a com- 
pound one, similar to that usually accorded to genera. So far as the 
present writer knows, no one of these varieties or forms stands out as 
the prevailing one, sc that it could reasonably be called the species. 
Future world-wide studies may discover this prevailing type, though it 
may have died out. Again future studies may show that the so-called 
species should be divided into several. In many other instances, Dr. 
Wainio has used the same m.ethod where there is good evidence that 
there is a prevailing form, from which the other varieties given have 
