DCHP-3

rock-tripe

< Cdn F tripe de roche
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

n.

an edible lichen of the genus, Umbilicaria (or, less often, the genus Gyrophora), having circular, leathery, gray­to-brownish thalli found attached to certain rocks by a threadlike holdfast.

Quotations

1853
On reaching the rock, they saw what Norman had meant by the words tripe de roche (rock-tripe). It was a black, hard crumply substance that nearly covered the surface of the rock, and was evidently of a vegetable nature.
1944
Often they speeded past high banks, where the rock-tripe and lichens had been scraped off by voyageurs, leaving their names and dates etched in white against the dark of the remaining vegetation.
1952
Sometimes she scrabbled through the drifts on hilltops and found a few wizened bearberries or a handfull of rock-tripe, a kind of moss.