It has been suggested[821] that when a decrease of albumenoids takes place, the quantity of lichen-acid increases, so that the excreted substance should be regarded as a sort of waste product of the living plant, “rather than as a product of deassimilation.” The subject is not yet wholly understood. _d._ CAUSES OF VARIATION IN QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF LICHEN-ACIDS. Though it has been proved that lichen-acids are formed freely all the year round on any soil or in any region, it happens occasionally that they are almost or entirely lacking in growing plants. Schwarz[822] found this to be the case in certain plants of _Lecanora tartarea_, and he suggests that the gyrophoric acid contained in the outer cortex of that lichen had been broken up by the ammonia of the atmosphere into carbonic acid and orcin which is soluble in water, and would thus be washed away by rain. It has also been shown by Schwendener[823] and others that the outer layers of the older thallus in many lichens slowly perish, first breaking up and then peeling off; the denuded areas would therefore have lost, for some time at least, their particular acids. Fünfstück[824] considers that the difference in the presence and amount of acid in the same species of lichen may be due very often to variation in the chemical character of the substratum, and this view tallies with the results noted by Heber Howe[825] in his study of American _Ramalinae_. He observed that, though all showed a pale-yellow reaction with potash, those growing on mineral substrata gave a more pronouncedly yellow colour. M. C. Knowles[826] found that in _Ramalina scopulorum_ the colour reaction to potash varied extremely, being more rapid and more intense, the more the plants were subject to the influence of the sea-spray. Lichen-acids are peculiarly abundant in soredia, and as, in some species, the thallus forms these outgrowths, or even becomes leprose more freely in damp weather, the amount of acids produced may depend on the amount of moisture in the atmosphere.