William Sherard died in 1728. He left his books and plates to the
University of Oxford with a sum of money to endow a Professorship of
Botany. In his will he had nominated Dr Dillenius for the post. The great
German botanist was accordingly appointed and became the first Sherardian
Professor of Botany, though he did not remove to Oxford till 1734. The
following years were devoted by him to the preparation of _Historia
Muscorum_, which was finally published in 1741. It includes an account
of the then known liverworts, mosses and lichens. The latter—still
considered by Dillenius as belonging to mosses—were grouped under three
genera, _Usnea_, _Coralloides_ and _Lichenoides_. The descriptions and
figures are excellent, and his notes on occasional lichen characteristics
and on localities are full of interest. His lichen herbarium, which still
exists at Oxford, mounted with the utmost care and neatness, has been
critically examined by Nylander and Crombie[59] and many of the species
identified.
Dillenius was ignorant of, or rejected, Micheli’s method of
classification, adopting instead the form of the thallus as a guide to
relationship. He also differed from him in his views as to propagation,
regarding the soredia as the pollen of the lichen, and the apothecia as
the seed-vessels, or even in certain cases as young plants.
Shortly after the publication of Dillenius’ _Historia_, appeared
Haller’s[60] _Systematic and Descriptive list of plants indigenous
to Switzerland_. The lichens are described as without visible leaves
or stamens but with “corpuscula” instead of flowers and leaves. He
arranged his lichen species, 160 in all, under seven different Orders:
1. “Lichenes Corniculati and Pyxidati”; 2. “L. Coralloidei”; 3. “L.
Fruticosi”; 4. “L. Pulmonarii”; 5. “L. Crustacei” (with flower-shields);
6. “L. Scutellis” (with shields but with little or no thallus); and 7.
“L. Crustacei” (without shields).
This period extends till near the end of the eighteenth century, and
thus includes within its scope the foundation of the binomial system of
naming plants established by Linnaeus[61]. The renowned Swedish botanist
rather scorned lichens as “rustici pauperrimi,” happily translated by
Schneider[62] as the “poor trash of vegetation,” but he named and listed
about 80 species. He divided his solitary genus _Lichen_ into sections:
1. “Leprosi tuberculati”; 2. “Leprosi scutellati”; 3. “Imbricati”;
4. “Foliacei”; 5. “Coriacei”; 6. “Scyphiferi”; 7. “Filamentosi.” By
this ordered sequence Linnaeus showed his appreciation of development,
beginning, as he does, with the leprose crustaceous thallus and
continuing up to the most highly organized filamentous forms. He and his
followers still included the genus _Lichen_ among Algae.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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