Vol 25, no 3, October - The Linnean Society of London

36
THE LINNEAN 2009 VOLUME 25(3)
Darwin’s Lichens
David J. Galloway, FLS
Landcare Research, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
(gallowayd@xtra.co.nz)
Introduction
In 1992-1993, I helped the late Prof. David L. Yudilevich (1930-2006) (see Mann
2006) coordinate an international symposium, “Darwin and the Beagle in Chile:
Evolution Today”, at the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile (29 September-1
October 1993) as part of the ICSU General Assembly meetings held at that time in
Santiago. The symposium was wide-ranging, covering the major themes of Geology,
Palaeontology, Evolution & Genetics, Botany, Zoology, Ecology, Medicine &
Psychology, Anthropology, History, Philosophy and Religion. To this symposium I
contributed an account of Darwin’s lichens (Galloway 1993a). Although David
Yudilevich later produced a fine book on Darwin in Chile (Yudilevich & Castro Le-
Fort (1995), based very much on the Symposium and its associated Darwin Exhibition
(to which the Linnean Society contributed a life-size copy of the Collier portrait of
Darwin from the Society’s Meeting Room) which was assembled in the Patio Ignacio
Domeyko of the University of Chile, none of the papers contributed to the Symposium
were published, hence this account of Darwin’s lichens in a revised form in this his
bicentennial year.
How I first became aware of, and interested in, Darwin’s lichens is quite a diverting
story. Early in 1973 when I began work on a New Zealand Lichen Flora at the then
British Museum (Natural History), I was disappointed at not being able to find any of
Banks and Solander’s New Zealand lichen specimens, even though the Slip Catalogue
in the Botany Library indicated that they had collected a few lichens from New Zealand
on the Endeavour voyage (Galloway 1998a). Peter James, then Head of the Lichen
Section, suggested that I look in the Botany storeroom at the top of the western central
tower above the Museum entrance, as he thought that there could be early,
unincorporated material to be found there. Early material there certainly was, in crazily
stacked and disintegrating cardboard boxes perched on rusting shelving under one of
the large water tanks. Occasional leaks from the tanks over the years, plus debris from
starling nests (a broken window pane had allowed easy entry for the birds!) contributed
to the scene of mild devastation and chaos, almost more reminiscent of Miss Havisham’s
dining room than a Museum storeroom. But what treasures were forthcoming! There
I found the missing Banks and Solander lichens and a box marked “Darwin’s Lichens”.
When I brought this box down to the Lichen Section Peter said disarmingly “Oh, I
rather thought they must have been somewhere”! The box, evidently Henslow’s
specimens that had been sent to Kew, contained a number of specimens on small
pieces of yellow paper with inked annotations and also a full sheet of Sticta divulsa
(Fig. 1) collected by Darwin from the Chonos Archipelago, that I was later to select as
lectotype (Galloway 1992a: 97). But it was not until my first collecting visit to Chile
in 1986, that I realised just how important these old abandoned Darwin lichen specimens
might be.