1916] Evans, — Notes on New England Hepaticae, — XIII 85 



of Madotheca was published by Schiffner. 1 He Hot only recognized 

 M. platyphylloidea as valid but segregated two other species from M. 

 platyphylla, describing them as new under the names M. Baueri and 

 M, Jackii. He pointed out further that Lindberg was in error when 

 he confused M. platyphylloidea with M. Thuja, and he emphasized 

 the fact that the true M. Thuja was a species of western and southern 

 Europe, allied to M. laevigata (Schrad.) Dumort. rather than to M. 

 platyphylla. Basing his opinion on the material at his disposal he 

 stated that the true M, platyphylla was totally lacking in America, 

 being everywhere replaced by M. platyphylloidea. The latter species 

 he did not report from Europe at all, although he pointed out that 

 M. Jackii was an exceedingly close ally. In his descriptions he laid 

 especial stress on specific characters drawn from the sporophyte and 

 particularly from the elaters. Some of these characters had been 

 noted by previous writers but had not been employed to any great 

 extent in separating species, and Schiffner deserves credit for recog- 

 nizing their value. 



In his monograph of the genus Madotheca, published in 1910,- 

 Stephani accepts M. Baueri and M . Jackii as valid but does not follow 

 Schiffner in his treatment of M. platyphylloidea. This species he 

 includes among the synonyms of .1/. Thuja, as Lindberg had done 

 forty-one years before. Both M. Thuja and M. platyphylla are quoted 

 from Europe and North America. Although the sporophytes are 

 described in the case of M . Baueri and M . Jackii, nothing is said about 

 them in the descriptions of M. Thuja and M. platyphylla, so that 

 Stephani apparently regards their features as of secondary importance. 



Muller, 3 in his treatment of M. platyphylla and its allies, follows 

 Schiffner in most respects but reduces M. Jackii to synonymy under 

 M. platyphylloidea and thus gives the latter species a much wider 

 geographical distribution than Schiffner had assigned to it. He 

 quotes the true M. platyf>hylla from North America, Africa, and Asia, 

 as well as from Europe, but restricts the range of M. Baueri to Europe. 

 In his opinion M. Baueri is a " kleine Art," because he finds transitional 

 conditions between the gametophyte of this species and that of M. 

 platyphylla, but he apparently finds little difficulty in separating M. 

 platyphylloidea from M. platyphylla. 



(To be continued. ) 



' Lotos 48: 346-350. 1900. 



' Species Hepaticarum 4: 241-315. 1010. 



3 Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen-Flora 6»: 673-584. /. lei. 164-166. 1916. 



