284 Howe : Notes on American Hepaticae 



II. Telaranea 



Telaranea Spruce, Trans, and Proc. Bot. Soc. [Edinb.] 15: 

 365. 1885. [As a synonym.] Schiffn.; Engl. & Prantl, Nat. 

 Pflanzenfam. i'^ : 103. 1895. 



The genus Telaranea has points of contact with Lcpidozia, 

 Blepharostoma, and Arachniopsis, and if generic rank is denied to 

 it, might be incorporated with any one of the three with almost 

 equal justice. To the Miero-Lepidozia section of the genus Lepi- 

 dozia its affinity is perhaps especially close, yet, according to pre- 

 vailing conceptions of genera among the Hepaticae, it seems a 

 rather violent proceeding to include it in a generic group the his- 

 torical type of which is Jiingermanida reptans L. Telaranea di- 

 verges from Lepidozia in its delicate, filmy, conferva-like habit and 

 in the division of the leaves very nearly or quite to the base, the 

 segments being never more highly connate than through half the 

 altitude of the basal cell and usually for a considerably less dis- 

 tance ; the leaf-segments are capillary, of a single row of cells 

 unless at the very base, the place of the basal cell being often oc- 

 cupied by a pair of cells side by side. From Blepharostoma, Tel- 

 aranea is probably best distinguished by the disparity in size between 

 leaves and underleaves and by the more pinnate branching. The 

 archegonia, though usually borne on short postical branches as in 

 Lepidozia and Cepkalozia, are sometimes terminal on the main stem 

 or lateral branches as in Blepharostovia. 



In its filmy habit and delicacy of structure Telaranea is sug- 

 gestive of Arachniopsis Spruce, but the latter genus represents a 

 still further departure along the same lines from the Lepidozia 

 type. In Arachniopsis the branches are all postical in origin, the 

 underleaves are entirely wanting or are now and then to be recog- 

 nized only in a most rudimentary form, and the leaves never have 

 more than two segments which are wholly free at the base and 

 consist of a single series of cells throughout. 



The species and varieties to be arranged under the genus are, 

 so far as we know them, as follows : 



I. Telaranea nematodes (Gottsche) 

 Jiingcnnainra )n!natodLS Gottsche, Hepaticae Cubenses Wright- 

 ianae. 



