The thickness of the thallus varies considerably according to the species. In some _Pertusariae_ with a stoutish irregular crust there is a narrow amorphous cortical layer of almost obliterated cells, a thin gonidial zone about 35 µ in width and a massive rather dense medulla of colourless hyphae. Darbishire[336] has described and figured in _Varicellaria microsticta_, one of the Pertusariaceae, single hyphae that extend like beams across the wide medulla and connect the two cortices. In some _Lecanorae_ and _Lecideae_ there is, on the contrary, an extremely thin thallus consisting of groups of algae and loose fungal filaments, which grow over and between the dead cork cells of the outer bark. On palings, there is often a fairly substantial granular crust present, with a gonidial zone up to about 80 µ thick, while the underlying or medullary hyphae burrow among the dead wood fibres. _b._ HYPOPHLOEODAL LICHENS. These immersed lichens are comparable with the endolithic species of the rock formations, as their thallus is almost entirely developed under the outer bark of the tree. They are recognizable, even in the absence of any fructification, by the somewhat shining brownish, white or olive-green patches that indicate the underlying lichen. This type of thallus occurs in widely separated families and genera, _Lecidea_, _Lecanora_, etc., but it is most constant in Graphideae and in those Pyrenolichens of which the algal symbiont belongs to the genus _Trentepohlia_. The development of these lichens is of peculiar interest as it has been proved that though both symbionts are embedded in the corky tissues, the hyphae arrive there first, and, at some later stage, are followed by the gonidia. There is therefore no question of the alga being a “captured slave” or “unwilling mate.” Frank[337] made a thorough study of several subcortical forms. He found that in _Arthonia radiata_, the first outwardly visible indication of the presence of the lichen on ash bark was a greenish spot quite distinct from the normal dull-grey colour of the periderm. Usually the spots are round in outline, but they tend to become ellipsoid in a horizontal direction, being influenced by the growth in thickness of the tree. At this early stage only hyphae are present; Bornet[338] as well as Frank described the outer periderm cells as penetrated and crammed with the colourless slender filaments. Lindau[339], in a more recent work, disputes that statement: he found that the hyphae invariably grew between the dead cork cells, splitting them up and disintegrating the bark, but never piercing the membranes. The purely prothallic condition, as a weft of closely entangled hyphae, may last, Frank considers, for a long period in an almost quiescent condition—possibly for several years—before the gonidia arrive.