OCR Text |
Show THE STUDY OF LICHENS. 4 Delightful Brunch of Science With WhUJl to Become Acquainted. They aro a difficult branch to study, for the descriptions aro shrouded in s mysterious lauguago that needs an unabridged un-abridged dictionary o translato it, and a good microscope is necessary if one wishes to examine their internal strutv fcuro and spores. But they aro a delightful delight-ful and easy branch of scienco to b como acquainted with by observation. They are to be found all the yoai round on stones and fence rails and on trees. They aro easy to mount and ar? bo fascinatingly ugly or beautiful tha they make an interesting collection. It almost any wild bit of country ther? are lrom 50 to 70 kinds to be found, ano even in the most civilizpd place, at one's own hearth, there are ure to bo seven or eight species growing on the sticks cl wood laid for the fire. They aro so likf aucTyetjSrtilike that they sharpen th powers ot comparison and observation until one feels that the keen blade knife and.pocket lens, w'ch are constant con-stant cojjnjanions in a lichen ramble, are dti'l compared with one's ov brighirmiud. Lichens and, by the way, they szi pronouueed li-kens, not litch-ens gioi in three ways, which can bo easily distinguished dis-tinguished at a glance. There are crus-taceous crus-taceous lichens that grow close to a Btona or bark and have no leafy part, but aw gimply a few warts or dots or a stain. There aro foliaeeous lichens that lio flail. They are groen or brown or yellow leathery plants that are something like leaves, and that havo brown or red 0 pink disks on them, and there aro fruti-coso fruti-coso lichens that grow upright liko little lit-tle shrubby bushes, with bright colr ored knobs. Go to any birch tree, and there will bo seen within a stained circle some curious cu-rious little black marks like elfin hieroglyphs. hiero-glyphs. They are the fruit spots of a common lichen called, very appropriately, appropriate-ly, Graphis scripta. Almost any trea one visits will havo somo irregular circular cir-cular stains upon it, especially if th bark is quite smooth, and in tho oentea there will be somo brown or black 01 white specks. It is easy to collect bucS crustaceous lichens by slicing off a thin strip of the bark, large enough to sho? tho outline of the stain, and by writing tho name of the treo from which it was taken on the bark, but it is quite a dif ferent matter when one sits down besids ft bowlder. New York Independent |