106 JOURNAL OF THE [J"ly> 



in a wheel-like form, from nine to thirteen horizontal, lobed, 

 green rays. Underneath these rays are found the spore-cases, 

 enclosed in their involucres. These spore-cases are globular, 

 depending from a slender pedicel, and rupturing by irregular 

 lobes, when mature, to discharge their spores. 



The Liverworts have curious organs, known as elaters, or 

 springs. These are slender, lengthened cells, growing in the 

 spore-cases, with the spores, and furnished inside with one or 

 two spiral fibres. Their office is, by a sudden expansion, to vio- 

 lently project the spores from the spore-case, when the latter is 

 ruptured at maturity. 



2. The other species is the Small Liverwort {Fiinbriaria tenella, 

 Nees.). This was found growing abundantly on the ground 

 along a hedge-row in an upland field at Nyack, N. Y. The 

 frond is scarcely half an inch in length, — at first light-green, 

 then turning purple. The peduncle of the pistilate receptacle is 

 sometimes an inch and one-half long, and the receptacle at its 

 summit is hemispherical, concave underneath, expanding at the 

 margin into two to four pendent, bell-shaped involucres, each 

 containing an ovoid spore-case. These spore-cases rupture, at 

 maturity, by an irregular line near the horizontal circumference. 



The spores and elaters of this second species are here exhib- 

 ited under the microscope. These spores are nearly triangular, 

 with a roughened outer coat, divided into irregular areas by 

 numerous ridges. And the elaters are short and stout, each 

 containing two spiral fibres. 



