
          more like some of my specimens from Peru, and as
these last are infertile - or rather sterile - it may be
that fertile ones wd [= would?] come nearer yet to the Californians.
Still I shd [= should] be glad to see specms [= specimens] with the base of attach-
ment perfect. As Eschweiler will allow but one species
throughout the globe (his Parmelia roccella) though I do not
suppose this authority is to be implicitly followed in any case, however
glad I may be to study his observations - and as Fries in-
clines strongly to the same course with the two old species,
and does reduce the intermediate R. phycopsis - while he speaks
of no others - it would be extremely venturesome, with
the specimens only, to do more than put them, (differences 
disregarded) with the other flattened forms under R. fuciformis,
as one of the fine-branched forms, analogous to common similar
ones of the terete R. tinctoria. The little fibrillose Parmelia
is P. erinacea Ach. sub. Borrera, described by him from specimens
communicated by Menzies, with three of whose specimens I
have compared it. It is very near P. ciliaris!
The few Californian lichens that are known seem to
promise a good deal of novelty in the lichenose vegetation
of that region. I notice these divisions of interesting lichens
from California. 1st The wholly distinct + new forms; as Ramal. [= Ramalina]
menziesii Tayl. (which I called [added: in Synopsis] R. retiformis, following as
I thought I should do, Menzies's own name) 2d The 
forms resembling Eastern ones, but ennobled, and strikingly
distinct in peculiar features; as Evernia xanthocarpa, which
with [added: apparently] the vegetation of a gigantick E. jubata, has apo-
thecia with a yellow disc. 3d, Old species in ennobled
forms, as Evernia vulpina, with its very fine and
radiated apothecia. To which of these groups the
above two lichens belong, I do not feel wholly certain; 
but if Parm. erinacea be a species, I hope some other
characters will be found than that depend
mainly on the quantity, length, or even position of the fibrillae.,
though Fries lays some stress apparently on the last feature, where
casually refering to the plant. If you desire it, I will
gladly make out a list of whatever you have sent me,
from time to time, + include in it Menziesii, of wch he
gave me a good set - but at present such a list would give
        