Pl. usneas, usneæe. [med. L. (12th cent.), ad. Arab. and Pers. ushnah moss. Hence F. usnée (1530).] A genus of gymnocarpous lichens, typical of the family Usneidæ; a species or plant of this.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, III. clvi. 1369. Muscus quernus;… the Arabians and the Apothecaries call it Vsnea.
1693. trans. Blancard’s Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Usnea, Moss which grows upon Bones or Trees.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Usnea, a kind of green Moss … which is us’d in Physick.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., Usnea,… of this genus of plants there are nineteen known species: 1. The stringy-tree moss, or common Usnea of the shops. Ibid., 19. The smallest of all the Usneas … grows on the barks of old trees.
1857. M. J. Berkeley, Introd. Crypt. Bot., 417. Usneæ, finally, when well-grown, are perhaps the most beautiful of Lichens.
1852. Thoreau, Maine W., ii. (1867), 155. The spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.
1861. H. Macmillan, Footn. fr. Page Nat., 109. So late as the seventeenth century, some of the filamentous lichens were sold in the shops of barbers and perfumers under the name of Usnea.
attrib. 1878. H. M. Stanley, Dark Cont., II. vii. 204. From many of the branches depended the Usneæ moss in graceful and delicate fringes.
