FLORA VITIENSIS. 423 
1. S. transversalis, Schw. in Fr. El. vol. ii. p. 94; innata, peritheciis erumpentibus astomis 
glabris, demum basi circumscissis, ramento macula fusca; sporidia uniseriata, fusca, elliptica, sub- 
globosa v. globosa, 070004 unc. long. (fide Currey in Linn. Trans. vol. xxii. p. 828).—Hoomospora 
transversalis, Breb. ex Berk.—Summit of Taviuni Island (Seemann ! n. 860). 
Dr. Seemann thus describes in his * Viti, p. 28, the occurrence of this plant on Taviuni Island :— 
* After another hour's scramble we reached the summit, and found it to all appearance a large extinct 
crater filled with water, and on the north-eastern part covered with a vegetable mass, so much resembling 
in colour and appearance the green fat of the turtle, as to have given rise to the popular belief that the fat 
of all the turtles eaten in Fiji is transported hither by supernatural agency, which is stated to be the reason 
why on the morning after a turtle-feast the natives always feel very hungry. This jelly-like mass is several 
feet thick, and entirely composed of some microscopic eryptogams, which, from specimens I submitted to 
the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, a weighty authority in these matters, proved to be Hoomospora transversalis of 
Brebisson, and the representative of quite a new genus, named Hoomonema fluitans, Berkl. A tall species 
of sedge was growing among them, and gave some degree of consistency to the singular body. We were 
not aware until it was too late that these strange productions were only floating on the top of the lake and 
forming a kind of crust, or else we should not have ventured upon it. On the contrary, we took it to be 
part of a swamp, that might be safely crossed, though not without difficulty, for we were always up to our 
knees, often to our hips, in this jelly. АП this caused a great deal of merriment. А little hunchback, who 
carried a basket swinging on a stick, looked most ludicrous iu his endeavours to keep pace with us. Now 
and then, when one or the other was trying to save himself from sinking into inextricable positions, he had 
to crawl like a reptile, and the others were not slow to laugh at his expense. The first symptoms of 
danger were several large fissures which occurred in the crust we were wading through. The water in them 
was perfectly clear, and a line of many yards let down reached no bottom. These fissures became more and 
more numerous as we advanced, until the vegetable mass abruptly terminated in a lake of limpid water full 
of eels. The border was rather more solid than the mass left behind, and all sat down to rest, from the 
great exertion it had required to drag ourselves for more than a mile and a half through one of the worst 
swamps I ever crossed.” 
Окро EQUISETACEZE. 
Milde, in his * Monographia Equisetorum * (Dresden, 1865), which was published in the Nova Acta, 
vol. xxxii., advocates the division of Equisetum into two genera, which he names respectively Equisetum and 
Hippochete, and of which he publishes generic characters; but in his subsequent enumeration of the 
species he abstains from adopting his new genus, and leaves it to future botanists to resume the responsi- 
bility of changing so many long-established names. Milde deals exclusively with the recent members of 
the Order Equisetaceæ; but Carruthers (Seem. Journ. of Bot. vol. v. p. 349. t. 70) has worked out the 
fossil ones, and, according to his able researches, the whole Order, as far as at рив known, is composed 
of two genera, viz. Calamites (including Asterophyllites, Annularia, Sphenophyllum) and Equisetum. Car- 
ruthers’s researches throw quite a new light upon the nature of our present Equisetaceæ,—the sheath, 
for instance, surrounding the stem being proved beyond doubt to be nothing but a whorl of leaves, very 
much reduced and united by their edges. In fact, the Equisetaceæ, as they are now growing on the globe, 
are but inferior Calamites, and fully bear out Gæppert's dictum, that Darwinism derives no support what- 
soever from the results of fossil botany. 
I. Hippochete, Milde, Monogr. Equiset. p. 379. Stomata 2, series maxime regulares in 
valleculis efformantia, semper stricte verticillata posita, in depressione profunda epidermidis sita, 
singula cellula quarta a se invicem disjuncta. Stoma exterius lamina silicea continua foramine amplo 
irregulariter pertuso obtectum. Radii stomatis exterioris numerosi 16-24, primum paralleli, denique 
divergentes, rarius furcati. Annuli incrassati, in caule veri desunt. Ocreola atro-fusca, fragilis, 
ex parte v. omnino velata, et chorophyllo stomatibus et fasciculis semper destituta videtur. Rami 
lacuna centrali præditi. Primum ramorum internodium vagina caulina semper brevius. Spica 
apiculata. Rhizoma tuberculis siliceis exasperatum. Plantæ caulibus homomorphis instructæ.— 
312 
