234 Transactions. — Botany. 



perichaetial small, narrow-ovate, acute, entire, nerveless ; cells 

 large, clear. Fruit-stalk ^ inch long, erect, suddenly curved at 

 top, smooth, red-brown, dark at base, 2-3 springing from axils 

 of brancblets ; capsule sub-obovate-obiong, nearly 1 line long, 

 pendulous, pale reddish-brown, spotted with fine red dots, and 

 finely tuberculated at the base usually in a kind of ring around 

 it, minutely reticulated, margin of mouth dark ; outer teeth 

 rather short, obtuse, incurved, dark brown, with two broad 

 vertical, light-brown equidistant lines, the centre partially clear, 

 largely transversely striate, margins grossly sub-denticulate- 

 Operculum and calyptra not seen. 



Hab. Concealed among Hepatica, and from rotten logs ; 

 woods near Norsewood, County of Waipawa ; 1884 : W.C. 



Obs. A species having some affinity with H. obtusata and 

 H. subsimilis (mihi, supra), but differing from both in several 

 particulars. Only two fruiting specimens have been detected, 

 long after journey, among Hepaticce collected. 



§ IV. Eriopus. 

 11. H. petrophila, sp. nov. 



Plant large, creeping at base, bushy, simple (rarely branched), 

 diffuse ; stems numerous, erect, 1^— 2 (rarely 2£) inches high, 

 5-6 lines broad, fiat, recurved at tips, of a pleasing bright-green 

 inclining to dark, clothed with leaves from base, with many 

 brown shining branched nattish rootlets below. Leaves sub- 

 quadrifariously disposed, imbricate, thin, margined, margin 

 narrow above, broader at base, upper half sharply serrulate, 

 lower entire ; cells large, sexagonal- orbicular, pretty uniform, 

 but smaller and more orbicular at apex, and larger and oblong 

 at base ; lateral leaves oblong or sub-obovate, 2-J- lines long, 

 dimidiate, spreading, narrowed at base, tip suddenly acute, 

 sharply apiculate, and curved on one side; nerve 1, very stout 

 at base, straight, forked, largely divergent ^rd length of leaf ; 

 dorsal and ventral leaves smaller, much more orbicular, and 

 more largely apiculate ; nerves 2 from base, diverging ; peri- 

 chretial small, transparent, the outer broadly elliptic or sub- 

 orbicular, the inner narrow ovate, all acuminate, the outer 

 being very acuminulate or sub-piliferous, margins entire, serru- 

 late at tips, nerveless ; cells linear-rhomboidal, acute. Fruit- 

 stalks 1-2-3 on upper part of stem and near each other, 3-5 

 lines long, succulent, green, thickened at base with a dark ring, 

 annulated, hairy ; hairs very short, thick and sub-tuberculous, 

 patent, larger and longer at top, and these erect and forming a 

 kind of small crest, but very distant from capsule and apex of 

 seta, which are both glabrous, upper part of seta largely glabrous 

 on the under side. Capsule oblong-elliptic, smooth, horizontal, 

 with an elevated ring at mouth and contracted below, sub- 

 apophysate, base slightly tubercled, dark-brown ; teeth pale-red, 



