The Antarctic Zone and the neighbouring lands are less hospitable to plant life than the northern regions, and there is practically no accumulation of detritus. Collections have been made by explorers, and several lists have been published which include a marvellous number of species common to both Poles, if the subantarctic lands are included in the survey. An analytic study of the various lists has been published by Darbishire[1073]. He recognizes 106 true Antarctic lichens half of which are Arctic as well. The greater number are crustaceous and are plants common also to other lands though a certain number are endemic. The most abundant genera in species as well as individuals are _Lecidea_ and _Lecanora_. Several bright yellow species of _Placodium_—_Pl. elegans_, _Pl. murorum_, etc., are there as at the North Pole. Among the larger forms, _Parmeliae_, _Cetrariae_, and _Cladoniae_ are fairly numerous; _Usneae_ and _Ramalinae_ rather uncommon, while members of the Stictaceae are much more abundant than in the North. The common species of _Peltigera_ also occur in Antarctica, though _P. aphthosa_ and _P. venosa_ are wanting; both of these latter are boreal species. Darbishire adds that lichens have so great a capacity to withstand cold, that they are only checked by the snow covering, and were bare rocks to be found at the South Pole, he is sure lichens would take possession of them. The most southerly point at which any plant has been found is 78° South latitude and 162° East longitude, in which locality the lichen _Lecanora subfusca_ was collected by members of Scott’s Antarctic expedition (1901-1904) at a height of 5000 ft. A somewhat different view of the Antarctic lichen flora is indicated by Hue[1072] in his account of the plants brought back by the second French Antarctic Expedition. The collection was an extremely favourable and important one: great blocks of stone with their communities of lichens were secured, and these blocks were entirely covered, the crustaceous species, especially, spreading over every inch of space. Hue determined 126 species, but as 15 of these came from the Magellan regions only 111 were truly Antarctic. Of these 90 are new species, 29 of them belonging to the genus _Buellia_. Hue considers, therefore, that in Antarctica there is a flora that, with the exception of cosmopolitan species, is different from every other, and is special to these southern regions. Darbishire himself described 34 new Antarctic species, but only 10 of these are from true Antarctica; the others were collected in South Georgia, the Falkland Islands or Tierra del Fuego. Even though many species are endemic in the south, the fact remains that a remarkable number of lichens which occur intermediately on mountain summits are common to both Polar areas. C. LICHENS OF THE TEMPERATE ZONES