ACRES OF LIVERWORTS 



6s 



Philadelphia. It has a light green velvety thallus about 

 one-sixteenth inch wide, much branched, and often forming 

 patches an inch across from a single spore. 



A year before this I began to find Fossomhronia. On 

 moist shady road banks with north exposure, or on the south 

 side of a little hole in the ground these plants appeared. 

 They too soon became common. 



But nowhere have I seen these forms, and several others, 

 in such quantity and luxuriance as in Bucks Co., Penna., about 

 five miles west of Trenton, N. J. Here in a corn field, on 

 clayey soil, I have twice seen the whole surface of the 

 ground for acres densely covered with Riccia crystallina! 

 One usually needs to get his face within a foot of the earth 

 when hunting liverworts. But in the above named locality, 

 "he who runs may read." This was the condition in August 

 and September. That particular field yielded a crop of hay 

 this year, but since harvest I find those same acres equally 

 covered with Anthoceros laevis, A. punctatus, Notothylas 

 orbicularis and a Fossomhronia (probably F. diimortieri) — 

 literally acres of them ! In the middle of August A. puncta- 

 tus is nearly dead. Fossomhronia is laden with yellow anthe- 

 ridia. The plant itself is of a light green color and grows 

 in dense beds often five inches long by one or two inches 

 wide. It crowds out everything else. Among all these forms 

 Fimbriaria tenella is rapidly spreading, but showing no signs 

 of fructification (August 24). 



Two more fields, one on either side of that just described, 

 are equally overrun with the same plants among the stubble. 

 And another field a mile south is the same. One of these 

 fields produced a crop of oats this year, sown in the second 

 week of April. Here Anthoceros punctatus was fully mature 

 on August I St. Another field, planted with potatoes, was 

 last cultivated about July ist. On August 24th it had large 

 and apparently mature plants of Riccia crystallina. Along 

 the woods-road near by, the path was green with A. laevis 

 on the 8th of July. Beside the brook in the meadow on 



