The larger foliose and fruticose lichens are now fairly well known and described for Europe, and the knowledge of lichens in other continents is gradually increasing. It is the smaller crustaceous forms that baffle the investigator. The distribution of all lichens over the surface of the earth is controlled by two principal factors, climate and substratum; for although lichens as a rule require only support, they are most of them restricted to one or another particular substratum, either organic or inorganic. As organisms which develop slowly, they require an unchanging substratum, and as sun-plants they avoid deeply shaded woodlands: their occurrence thus depends to a large extent on the configuration and general vegetation of the country. Though so numerous and so widely distributed, lichens have not evolved that great variety of families and genera characteristic of the allied fungi and algae. They conform to a few leading types of structure, and thus the Orders and Families are comparatively few, and more or less universal. They are most of them undoubtedly very old plants and were probably wide-spread before continents and climates had attained their present stability. Arnold[1066] indeed considers that a large part of the present-day lichens were almost certainly already evolved at the end of the Tertiary period, and that they originated in a warm or probably subtropical climate. As proof of this he cites such genera as _Graphis_, _Thelotrema_ and _Arthonia_[1067] which are numerous in the tropics though rare in the colder European countries; and he sees further proof in the fact that many fruticose and gelatinous lichens do not occur further north than the forest belt, though they are adapted to cold conditions. Several genera that are abundant in the tropics are represented outside these regions by only one or few species, as for instance _Conotrema urceolatum_ and _Bombyliospora incana_. During the Ice age of the Quaternary period, not many new species can have arisen, and such forms as were not killed off must have been driven towards the south. As the ice retreated the valleys were again stocked with southern forms, and northern species were left behind on mountain tops all over the globe. In examining therefore the distribution of lichens, it will be found that the distinction between different countries is relative, certain families being more or less abundant in some regions than others, but, in general, nearly all being represented. Certain species are universal, where similar conditions prevail. This is especially true of those species adapted to extreme cold, as that condition, normal in polar regions, recurs even on the equator if the mountains reach the limit of perpetual snow; the vertical distribution thus follows on the lines of the horizontal.