﻿98 Le Jolis-Howe:« Porella once more 



Dickson to " suspect." 



* 



t> 



But " Porella " was from America. If it 

 Europe (where, also, Porella pinnaia is said 

 to occur) the botanists of the time would, it may be, have been 

 more curious to know what the genus which the distinguished 

 Linnaeus had thought worthy of being copied into his works really 

 was ; would, perhaps, after Dickson's identification and corrections, 

 have written it as a synonym of Jungermania, and, possibly, on the 

 final dismemberment of the latter group, would have assigned it 

 its proper place with the necessary emendations. But " priority 

 was not so much in vogue in those days, though, in general, there 

 was great respect for the Linnaean names. As it was, however, 



* _ 



Nees (in Naturgesch. Eur. Leberm.) recognized u Porella Dill." as 

 a synonym of his MadotJicca Porella. 



" Madotheca" itself, in its original form, has little to boast of 

 over Porella. Dumortier, in his Commentationes Botanicae (1822, 

 p. in), writes : 



Madotheca 



Colesula ore coarctato ; theca quadridentata; elaters vagi cir- 

 cumdati. 



Platiphylla Laevigata 



Thuya 



Not an essential character of the "genus " is touched upon* and 



* 



* Greatly superior to this is S. F. Gray's diagnosis of the equivalent Cavendishia 

 published one year earlier (Nat. Arr. Brit. PI. i: 689. 1821). It reads as fol- 



lows : 



" XVI II. 332. Cavendishia. 



Cavendish. 



«« 



Monoicous. Male. Anthers spherical, pedicelled, solitary, in the axillae of the 

 perichaetial leaves. Fem. Calyx lateral, ovate, narrow at bottom, compressed, be- 

 coming cylindrical ; mouth truncated, serrate, slit on one side; peduncle short, not 

 jointed; capsule spherical, seemingly 4-valved; valves upright, irregularly networked ; 

 seed roundish ; elaters membranaceous, tubular ; helices double, loosely twisted ; leaves 

 2-rowed, 2-cut t segments unequal, conduplicate. 

 " I. Cavendishia platyphylla. Broad-leaved cavendish. 



"Stem lying down, bipinnately branched; leaves, upper lobe roundish, ovate, 

 scarcely cut ; lower lobe and stipules strap-like, uncut. 



"Lichenastrum arboris vitae facie, foliis minus rotundis, Dillen Muse. 72,32. 



"Jungermannia platyphylla, Lin. S. P. 1600 ; Eng. Bot. 79S ; Hooker Jung. 40. 



"Jungermannia cupressiformis /?, Lamarck Encyl. 3, 383." 



[Two varieties, major and y thujaeformis, are also described, and the habitat 

 given] 



" 2. Cavendishia la igata. Smooth cavendish. 



"Stem lying down ; branches irregularly pinnate ; leaves 2-rowed, unequally 2- 



