S&SGraphscrip.jpg

Graphis scripta, a scan of a plate from Smith and Sowerby’s English Botany, Vol. X (1843). Smith & Sowerby provide a good description and hint at the modern splitting into separate taxa: “Thallus thin, membranous, more or less smooth, somewhat shining, greyish-white, indistinctly bordered with black. Apothecia partly immersed, naked or pruinose, flexuose, simple or branched in a parallel direction, subrimiform, surrounded by an accessory raised border, formed of the thallus. Frequent on the smooth bark of trees. An exceedingly variable plant, whose different states have been often described as distinct species. It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to define it by positive characters. Our figure, G. scripta, β. of Acharius, seems to represent the form most common in England, that at least with which I am most familiar…”