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Show THE STUDY OF LICHENS. 4 Delightful Branch of Science With Wbiek o Become Acquainted. They are a difficult branch to study, fcr the descriptions are shrouded in a mysterious language that needs an unabridged un-abridged dictionary to translate it, and a good microscope Is necessary if one wishes to examine their internal structure struc-ture and spores. But they are a delightful delight-ful and easy branch of science to become be-come acquainted with by observation. They are to be found all the yeas round on stoues and fence rails &nd on trees. They are easy to mount and are so fascinatingly ugly or beautiful tlia they make an interesting collection. It almost any wild bit of country there are from 50 to 70 kinds to be found, and even in the most civillftd p?ce, at one's own hearth, there are ure to be seven or eight species growing on the sticks oi wood laid for the fire. They are so like and yet unlike that they sharpen the powers of comparison and observation until one feels that the keen bladetf knife and pocket lens, which are constant con-stant companions in a lichen ramble, are dull compared with one's owo bright mind. Lichens and. by the way, they pronounced li-kens, not litch-ens grow 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 stone or bark and have no leafy part, but ai simply a few warts or dots or a 6taia. There are f oliaceous lichens that lie flat. They are green or brown or yelled leathery plants that are something like leaves, and that have brown or red ot pink disks on them, and there are fruti-coso fruti-coso lichens that grow upright like lit tle biimuuy dumics, wiin unguii tutored tut-ored knobs. Go to any birch tree, and there "will be seen within a stained circle somo carious ca-rious little black marks like elfin hieroglyphs. hiero-glyphs. They axe the fruit spots of 8 common lichen called, very appropriately, appropriate-ly, Graphis scripta. Almost any tree one visits will have some irregular circular cir-cular stains upon it, especially if the bark is quite smooth, and in the oente there will be some brown or black ot white specks. It is easy to collect sues erustaceons lichens by slicing off a thiu strip of the bark, largo enough to shovn the outline of the stain, and by writinj the namo of the tree from which it was taken on the bark, but it is quite a different dif-ferent matter when one sits down beside bowlder. New York Independent |