Howe : Notes on American Hepaticae 285 



Cephalozia nematodes Aust. Bull. Torrey Club, 6 : 302, 1879. 



Lepidozia chaetopliylla Spruce, Trans, and Proc. Bot. Soc. 

 [Edinb.] 15: 365. 1885. 



Lepidozia nematodes Spruce, /. c. 366. 



Telaranea chaetopliylla Spruce, " Mst. nov. gen." /. c. [as syno- 

 nym]. Schiffn. ; Engl. & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam. i^ : 103. 1895. 



Lepidozia chaetopliylla tenids Pearson, Christ. Vid.-Selsk. For- 

 handl. i886'^: 9. 1886. Evans, Bull. Torrey Club, 20: 308. 

 1893. 



Blepharostoma nematodes Underw. Bull. Torrey Club, 23 : 383 

 (footnote). 1896. 



Spruce in comparing his Lepidozia chaetopliylla with Lepidozia 

 nematodes (Gottsche) emphasizes the flaccidity of the latter as a 

 distinguishing character and this indeed appears to be about the 

 only difference of importance to be detected between Wright's 

 Cuban plant and those from South America distributed by Spruce 

 as Telaranea chaetophylla (Hepaticae Spruceanae : Amazonicae et 

 Andinae). Wright's specimens revive quite imperfectly on being 

 soaked out with water, but there is such a range of variability in 

 this respect in different parts of a single tuft and even of different 

 parts of a single plant, both in the Cuban and South American 

 specimens that we are not inclined to give much weight to this 

 character. We therefore agree with our friend Mr. Pearson (/. <;.) 

 in believing that the two forms represent a single species. We 

 would, however, differ from Pearson in retaming for this species 

 the oldest published name nematodes. The specific name nemoides 

 given earlier by Taylor to another plant now recognized as a Lepi- 

 dozia seems sufficiently different both to the eye and ear to prevent 

 confusion.* 



In both the Cuban and South American plants the archegonia 

 are usually borne on a short postical branch, rarely at the end of 

 the main axis or of an elongated branch. In 1886, Pearson (/. f.) 

 identified a specimen from Natal, South Africa, with Gottsche's 

 Cuban species, which he renamed Lepidozia chaetophylla tenuis. 



*The remark is attributed to Spruce (Pearson, /. c.') that nemoides and nematodes 

 differ only in case-ending. It seems to us that the two words are equally nominative 

 in form but that Taylor's name nemoides is an etymological monstrosity on account of 

 his failure to use the true stem of the Greek noun in constructing the adjective. 



