42 



was so obliging as to send me specimens in that state from the 

 neighbourhood of that place, which I have already mentioned 

 .in the second edition of the Muscologia Britannica. These I 

 think prove beyond a doubt that the plant is rightly placed in 

 the genus Riccia ; at the same time I must acknowledge that 

 the fructification, in the only specimen I have yet received, is 

 too far advanced to allow me to distinguish the capsule itself. 

 But I know that in our common R. crystallina this part is 

 thin and evanescent, and masses of seeds, from two or three 

 or more capsules at length become confluent in the substance 

 of the frond, and escape by the decay of the epidermis above 

 them, leaving cavities or hollows in the frond. It is the case 

 here also, and the seeds are of precisely the same nature in 

 both. 



^ig. 1. Plant of Riccia natans [nat. size). Fig. 2. Fructified plant. 

 Fig. 3. Portion of the same, to show the inside of a capsule. 

 Fig. 4. Another portion, showing the seeds of several capsules 

 conglomerated. Fig. 5. Seeds. Fig. 6. Portion of the epider- 

 mis of the plant: — magnijicd. 



