584' SUMMAEY OF CUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



North American Hepaticse.* — A. ^Y. Evans publishes some notes on 

 New England hepaticas. Three of the species treated have a nomen- 

 clatorial interest, especially NanUa geoscyijlms, which has a large 

 synonymy, including X. Immatostkta Lindb. The other species noted 

 are additions to the flora of the New England states, namely, two species 

 of Lophozia, five species of Cahjpogeia, one of which is new to science, 

 a new Scapama, and the British species Frullania Tamarisci, to dis- 

 tinguish which from F. Asa-grayana is becoming increasingly difficult. 

 New descriptions and plentiful critical notes are added where necessary. 



Dichiton gallicum.f — Ch. Douin gives a minutely detailed descrip- 

 tion of Dichiton gallicum; a new species found by him in the forest of 

 Dangeau (Eure-et-Loir). It is an unexpected addition of a second 

 species to a rare and anomalous genus discovered in Algeria GO years 

 ago, and five years ago found on the Mediterranean coast of France. 

 The author carefully compares the new species with the original species, 

 Dichiton per^jusillum, or D. calyculatum, and points out the generic 

 resemblances and the specific differences. He discusses the proper place 

 for the genus in a natural classification, giving the views of other writers, 

 but without satisfaction, for he feels that it has no affinity with Ana- 

 strejfta and Acrobolbus, and that, if it approaches Lophozia, it is allied, 

 not to the section Sphenolobus, but to Bidentes. The fact is, that 

 Dichiton, by its manifold resemblances, is not easy to class in a linear 

 series. C. Massalongo,| in a subsequent article, also discusses the same 

 genus, Dichiton, partly from a critical point of view, partly in relation to 

 its occurrence in Italy. Adopting D. calyculatum as the correct name 

 for the type, and lowering D. gallicum to varietal rank, he shows that to 

 the variety must be referred a specimen from Firenze (leg. Levier, 1885), 

 which he published as Cepholozia integerrima Lindb., and that to the 

 type must be referred two specimens from Elba (leg. Sommier, 1901, 

 1904), and two from Sicily (leg. Zodda, 1905-6), which have also been 

 wrongly named G. integerrima Lindb. This correction he makes after 

 a study of Lindberg's type. Thus D. calyculatum has now been recorded 

 for Algeria, South France, Dalmatia, and Italy. He, just as Douin has 

 done, discusses the connate pericha3tial bracts of D. calyculatum and the 

 analogous formation in Gephaloziella piriflora (= C.Bryhnii), where he 

 finds it to be a variable character. 



Gephaloziella patula Schiffn. in Britain.§ — W. E. Nicholson 

 narrates how he gathered in Crete, in the spring of 1906, an hepatic 

 identified for him as G. Baumgartneri by Schiffner, who has subsequently 

 shown it to be synonymous with G. patula, described under Gephalozia 

 by Stephani in 1905. Nicholson has gathered the same species on chalk 

 blocks near his own home at Lewes, in England. He contrasts the 

 plant with its close ally, G. integerrima "Warnst., a recent addition to the 

 British flora, showing the differences of habit, habitat, and distribution, 

 and giving the names of the bryophytes with which G. patula is associated 



in its growth. 



* Rhodora.ix. (1907) pp. 56-60, 65-73 (1 pi.)- 



t Bull. Soc. Bot. France, liii. (1906) pp. 461-79 (figs.). 



X Malpighia, xx. (1906) pp. 456-62. 



§ Journ. of Bot., xlv. (1907) pp. 279-80. 



