LINCOLNSHIRE LIVERWORTS: 
BY J2 REV Bes IG: 
with 
Miss S. C. Stow’s List of Recorded Species. 
The Liverworts, or Hepaticce are a class of flowerless plants, 
forming, with the mosses—and ranking next below them in the 
plant scale—the order Muscineew. ‘This order stands between the 
Alge on the lower side and the Vascular Cryptogams—club 
mosses, ferns, etc.,—on the higher. 
The Hepatice received the names they bear from a supposed 
medicinal value ; and there is no doubt that they have been used 
as a cure for liver complaints, though they are doubtless useless 
for such a purpose ; they have, in fact, no economic use whatever. 
They are, nevertheless, a most interesting order of plants, and 
have been recently spoken of by Dr. Carvers as the most interesting 
group of all. 
As is well known, they grow, in most cases, in damp places— 
in woods, on the borders of ditches, streams and pools, and in 
caves, while two or three float on the surface of stagnant ponds 
or ditches during the whole or a part of their existence. 
The vegetative organs are, broadly speaking, of two different 
kinds ; the thalloid or alga-like form, in which there is no differ- 
entiation into stem and leaf, the function of both being effected 
by the thallus; and the foliaceous form, in which there are stems 
and leaves. “There are, however, intermediate forms, which 
cannot be properly called either thalloid or foliaceous. 
Dealing first with a thalloid form, such as Pellia or Marchantia, 
we find a thallus or frond formed of a flattish mass of cells, with 
small scale leaves and rootlets below. Each thallus is commonly 
more or less heart-shaped; the growing apex is in a depression, 
