146 
Cryptogams or Flowerless Plants — Lichenes . 
Reproductive Organs :—Sporanges or asci cylindrical or oblong, each usually containing a row of 8 (or 
fewer or more) spores, and intermixed with slender club-shaped filaments (joaraphyses ), collected together upon 
receptacles of various form and degrees of concavity, either widely open to the air as in Gymnospermous Lichens, or 
lining the interior of a cavity opening by a minute pore as in Angiospermous Lichens. Evidence is not yet 
satisfactory as to the mode of fertilisation of the spore-containing cells, but it is probably due to the spermatia 
referred to above. 
USES, &c.—A few Lichens which become gelatinous in warm water are edible, as Iceland Moss ( Getraria 
islandicus). Reindeer Moss ( Cladonia rangiferina) is the main support of the reindeer in the Arctic zone, and is 
collected in Norway to feed cattle in preference to hay. Other species afford red, yellow, and violet dyes, as species 
of Roccella and Lecanora , the orchil, cudbear, and litmus of commerce. 
Natural Order 
FUNGI. Tab. 108. 
Diagnosis. — Cellular, frequently evanescent, plants dependent upon 
organic matter for their nourishment, variously coloured but never green ; 
the vegetative portion usually embedded and not encrusting. Fructification 
very various, consisting usually of minute spores, either borne naked upon 
the surface of the reproductive cells (in Sporiferous Fungi) or enclosed in 
sporanges or asci (in Sporidiferous Fungi). 
Distribution. —A very large group, distributed generally over the Globe, though especially (if not 
exclusively) where organic matter is undergoing decomposition; occurring often in the most unlikely 
