162 Howe : Riccia Beyrichiana and Riccia dictyospora 



was chiefly responsible for them. The fact that Lindenberg had 

 already, only two years before, published his classical " Mono- 

 graphie der Riccien " makes it very probable that this Riccia, at 

 least, would have received his special attention. Riccia Beyri- 

 chiana was, however, a MS. name of Hampe's under which, as it 

 would seem, Hampe had communicated the plant to one or 

 the other of the authors of the work. It is stated in connec- 

 tion with the first description that the plant was collected by 

 C Beyrich in North America, between Jefferson and Gainesville, 

 there being no intimation as to what part of North America these 

 two towns might be found in. But from what is known of Bey- 

 rich's travels and of American geography, it is evident that the 

 Jefferson and Gainesville in question are in northern Georgia, where 

 these two towns are county-seats, lying fifteen or twenty miles 

 apart. Jefferson, by the way, is, according to Mr. Harper, less 

 than twenty miles from Athens, where the plant recently suspected 

 to be R. Beyrichiana 'was collected. To return to our bibliograph- 

 ical sketch, an abridged description of the species, a few years after 

 its publication, was included in the Synopsis Hepaticarum of Gott- 

 sche, Lindenberg, and Nees, and then, in 1856, an English ab- 

 stract of this was given a place by Sullivant in the second edition 

 of Gray's Manual. In some unaccountable way, Sullivant ascribed 

 the plant to Tennessee. In Professor Underwood's " Descriptive 

 Catalog of the North American Hepaticae," published in 1884, 

 the species was treated much as by Sullivant, though with more 

 reference to the original description. But in some critical notes on 

 the American species of Riccia published by Professor Underwood 

 in the Botanical Gazette in 1884, Riccia Beyrichiana was omitted 

 on the ground that there was no recent evidence that it was a 

 member of our flora. 



In 1898, however, Herr Stephani, in his Species Hepaticarum, 

 states that he has seen Beyrich's plant, that it was collected in 



Jefferson, North America, and that it is doubtless a good species 



And he gives a new and somewhat detailed description of it. 

 After an examination of the Lindenbergian material, we concur 

 with Herr Stephani in the opinion that Riccia Beyrichiana is a valid 

 species. The pocket in the Lindenberg herbarium is marked 

 clearly "Int. Jefferson & Gainsviile, 13/8 33. Beyrich. Mis. 



