362 Pacific Coast Hepatice. [ ZOE 
vey an erroneous impression of the group that is annoying.’ Liver- 
worts, lichens and true mosses are all too much neglected in a land 
where new species of spermaphytes are constantly coming to light. 
It is high time that some attention be devoted to their study. It 
was the intention of the authors of the ‘‘ Botany of California’’ to 
include an account of the Hepatic in that publication in connec- 
‘tion with the account of the mosses, and although the MSS. was 
prepared for the publishers it was found to be impracticable to print 
it because of the paucity of material and the numerous uncertainties 
and deficiencies it contained. An illustration of this, and as well of the 
great difficulty of securing observers to ascertain the simplest facts 
may be profitably recorded here. Conocephalus conicus is perhaps our 
largest and most conspicuous liverwort. The MSS. of the ‘‘ Botany 
of California,’’ included this species more because ‘its known dis- 
tribution elsewhere would make its occurrence in California prob- 
able and added the statement, “ not certainly known from Cali- 
fornia ’’ to its habitat. To determine its presence in the State, the 
present writer some years ago addressed letters to one after another 
of the botanists and botanical collectors of the State. In every 
case the evidence received was negative and no certainty was reached 
until during a trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains in July, 1888, we 
found it growing along Bowlder Creek forming its conspicuous and 
extensive mats in great abundance. It is probably widely dis- 
tributed in the State wherever water and shade are. abundant. 
This list has been prepared with the view to call attention to the 
present known distribution of Pacific Coast hepatics, and as well 
to point out for future collectors the vast areas of unexplored ter- 
ritory where diligent search cannot fail to result in a harvest of 
interesting species. 
The Hepatic are shade-loving and moisture-loving plants and 
will be found in profusion in wooded cafions and along shaded water- 
courses, on rotting logs, in bogs, on clay banks and on the bark of _ 
trees. No part of the Pacific Coast region of the United States — 
except possibly the environs of San Francisco can be said to have 
* Average botanical collectors, even some whose training ought to have given 
better results, frequently mistake the thallose lichens for thallose liverworts, and 
the two ranked mosses for foliose liverworts. The fleshy texture ought to deter- 
mine in the first instance, and thé absence of a midrib in the le 
mine | af will easily dis- . 
tinguish a foliose liverwort from a true moss. ie 
