65 



#n3inal %xiuhB. 



ON TWO NEW BRITISH HEPATICiE. 



By Benjamin Cakrington, M.D. 



{Read before the Edinburgh Botanical Society, March 10th, 1870.] 



1. Nardia sphacelata (Gies.), Can-. ; primary shoots creeping, stolo- 

 niferous; branches erect, subramose; leaves remote, vertically patent, 

 cordate, complicate, erect, and sheathing at the base ; apex emargi- 

 nate ; lobes rounded, obtuse, incurved ; sinus acute. — Jioigermannia 

 sphacelata, Gies. Lind. Syn. Hep. p. 76. t. 1. f. 9, 13. SarcoscypJius 

 sphacelatus, Nees ab E. — Collected by my friend Mr. G. E. Hunt, of 

 Manchester, at Loch Kandoi', and Ben Mac Duigh, July, 1868. 



Stems 3-4 in. long by gL in. broad, flexuose, very slender, simple, 

 or vaguely ramose, stoloniferous at the base. Eootlets scattered at 

 the bases of the leaves, more abundant on the creeping stems. Colour 

 green, the apices of the leaves and stems sphacelate. Whole plant of 

 a dirty olive when dry. Leaves alternate, distant, patent from an erect 

 tumid sheatJiing base, very concave, cordate to obcordate, bilobed ; 

 lobes equal, rounded, obtuse ; sinus narrow, sometimes gibbous, equal 

 to about one-third of the length of the leaf. Texture of the leaves thin 

 and tender, not shining, shrinking when dry. Areolae minute, dis- 

 orete ; the limits of the cells well marked ; walls delicate ; " trigones " 

 distinct ; interior of the cells subpellucid. 



N. sphacelata is an important accession to our list of Hepaticce, and 

 not easily confounded with its allies. The remarkably long and 

 slender stems and distant sheathing leaves, retlexed at the apex, and 

 the colour will usually serve for its identification. In slender forms of 

 iV. emarglnata, Ehrh. (Gray), the leaves are of a more cartilaginous 

 texture, somewhat polished, and scarcely altered when dry, and the 

 leaf-cells are larger and "guttulate." The stems too are stouter 

 and shorter, and the leaves more crowded and bluntly lobed. From 

 iV. Funckii it may be always known by the more rigid approximate 

 leaves and acute lobes of that species. From J. inflata, which it 

 resembles in colour and texture, by the oblique insertion of the leaves 



VOL. VIII. [apkil 1, 1870.] F 



