HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
85 
Plentifully scattered all round us we find tlie Cladina 
ranyiferina and C. furcata looking like miniature trees, but 
with hollow stems and bending over at the extremities, 
bearing the brown fruit, like tiny berries, hanging from their 
points. 
We also notice amongst it portions of Cetraria aculeata, 
with its wire-like brown stems, angular, and often spinose on 
the margins. Then on the rocks which crop up here and 
there, amongst many old friends, we find Platysma Fahlunense, 
with its dark brown lobes often curling up on its edges, and 
sorediiferous. Then, lastly, as we must hasten homewards, 
we find on the earth, sheltered by the heather, Bceomyces rufus, 
a delicate green tliallus, bearing on its white stipes the 
capitate reddish apotliecia. 
Thus, in one single ramble, we have met with most of the 
Common Lichens which enrich our hedge banks and ornament 
our trees. And it is these which the young student would 
first wish to know ; the Crustaceous ones and the rarer species 
will form subjects for his future investigation. 
We trust our introduction to this group of lowly plants 
will awaken an interest in their study in the minds of some, 
and be a slight help to enable us to know more of the variety, 
the beauty, and perfection in the manifold works of the 
Creator. 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY ROT ANY OF WORCESTER. 
BY WM. MATHEWS, M.A. 
The Authors of the best local Floras of modern date have 
deemed it a useful and honourable task to trace the history of 
the discovery of the indigenous vegetation of the districts upon 
which they have written, and to describe the successive con¬ 
tributions made by their predecessors to our knowledge of the 
present day. This task has not yet been adequately performed 
for the County of Worcester. I have ventured to attempt it 
and hope, by so doing, to lay the foundation for a new Flora 
of the County, whenever, and by whom, it may be undertaken. 
A fairly complete list of the writers who have published 
records of Worcestershire plants is contained in the “ Botany 
of Worcestevshire" (Worcester, 1867), by my friend Mr. Edwin 
Lees, p. lxxxviii.—xci.; and also, under the head of Worcester, 
in the “ Botanical Biblioyraphy of the British Counties ,” by Dr. 
Henry Trimen; Journal of Botany, 1874, Yol. XII., p. 155. 
It should further be mentioned that the late Rev. W. W. 
