MOSS ALLIES. 119 



The Liverworts are divided into two great families : — 

 1st, Foliaceous Liverworts ; 2d, Frondose Liverworts 

 The leafy or foliaceous Liverworts are again divided into 

 those without stipules and those with stipules : the stipules 

 are rudimentary leaves, situated between the true leaves, 

 on the under part of the stem. The first time that my 

 attention was attracted to the Liverworts, I was wander- 

 ing in Longleat Park and its adjacent woods. It was 

 early spring, moist, warm, February weather. The 

 mosses lay thick and verdant at my feet — the Swan- 

 necked Thyme Thread moss with its forest of half-formed 

 urns, and the Tamarisk Feather moss with its luxuriant 

 plume-like foliage. Among these entwined long delicate 

 branches, with roundish transparent leaves in exact row- 

 on either side ; the stems were brittle, and I found it 

 needed great care to disentangle them from the compan- 

 ion moss without snapping them off in short pieces ; the 

 leaves were pale green and shining, and a pocket lens 

 showed them to be formed of a net-work of cells ; and 

 there was no mid-vein. I felt sure that this could not 

 be a moss, still less a fern ; but as I could find no fruit. 

 I had to wait to determine its order. It was not till 

 afterwards that 1 ascertained it to be the Asplenium-like 

 Liverwort (J. asplenoides, cut 4, fig. 7), the largest and 

 commonest of the Leafy Jungermanniae. In those same 

 woods, but later in the season, I found a similar plant 

 studded with capsules, some entire and puffed out with 

 the ripening seed, and others already empty, and standing 

 star-like on the transparent footstalks. I then recognised 

 in both the characteristics of the Liverworts. 



Winter and early spring is the time for finding Liver- 



