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Show THE STUDY OF LICHENS. A Delightful Branch of Science With WhJefc ' ' to 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 b come acquainted -with by observation. They are to be found all the yeai round on stones a.nd fence rails and on trees. They are easy to mount and are bo fascinatingly ugly or beautiful tha they make an interesting collection, Il almost any wild bit of country there are from 50 to 70 kinds to be found, and even in the most civilized place, at one's own hearth, there are ire to be seven or eight species growing on the sticks ol 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 bladed knife and pocket lens, wHch are constant con-stant companions in a lichen ramble are dull compared with one's owa bright mind. Lichens and, by the way, they ara pronounced li-kens, not litch-ens grow in three ways, which can be 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 aw simply a few warts or dots or a stain. There are f oliaceous lichens that lie flat They are green or brown or yellow leathery plants that are something lite leaves, and that have brown or red ot pink disks on them, and there are fruti-cose fruti-cose lichens that grow upright like little lit-tle 6hrubby bu.shes, with bright colored col-ored knobs. Go to any birch tree, and there will be 6een within a stained circle some curious cu-rious little biack marks like elfin hieroglyphs. hiero-glyphs. They are the fruit spots of a 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 oentei there will be some brown or black o white specks. It is easy to collect suoi crustaceous lichens by slicing off a thiu strip of the bark, large enough to show the outline of the stain, and by writinj the name of ihe tree from which it wa taken on the bark, but it is quite a different dif-ferent matter when one sits down besid bowlder. New York Independent |