Rosendahl’s[803] researches on the brown _Parmeliae_ resulted in the unexpected discovery of specialized oil-cells situated in the cortices—upper and lower—of five species out of fourteen which he examined. In one of the species, _P. papulosa_, they also occurred in the cortex of the rhizoids. The oil-cells were thinner-walled and larger than the neighbouring cortical cells; they were clavate or ovate in form and sometimes formed irregular external processes. They were more or less completely filled with oil which coloured brown with osmic acid, left a fat stain on paper and, when extracted, burned with a shining reddish flame. These oil-cells were never formed in the medulla nor in the gonidial region. _c._ SIGNIFICANCE OF OIL-FORMATION. Zukal[804] regarded the oil stored in these specialized cells as a reserve product of service to the plant in the strain of fruit-formation, or in times of prolonged drought or deprivation of light. According to his observations fat was most freely formed in lichens when periods of luxuriant growth alternated with periods of starvation. He cites, as proof of his view, the frequent presence of empty sphaeroid cells, and the varying production of oil affected by the condition, habitat, etc. of the plant. Fünfstück[805], on the other hand, considers the oil of the sphaeroid and swollen cells as an excretion, representing the waste products of metabolism in the active tissue, but due chiefly to the presence of an excess of carbonic acid which, being set free by the action of the lichen acids on the carbonate of lime, forms the basis of fat-formation. He points out that the development of fat-cells is always greater in endolithic species in which the gonidial layer—the assimilating tissue—is extremely reduced. In epilithic lichens with a wide gonidial zone, the formation of oil is insignificant. He states further that if the oil were a direct product of assimilation, the cells in which it is stored would be found in contact with the gonidia, and that is rarely the case, the maximum of fat production being always at some distance.