Fam. 3. GEORGIACE^E. 



Plants caespitose or very small and gregarious ; the leaves in 

 3-5 rows, smooth, ovate, or lanceolate with a thin nerve, areolation 

 hexagono-rotundate, sparingly chlorophyllose. Inflorescence gemmi- 

 form. Calyptra mitriform, lobed at base, longitudinally plicate, 

 covering most of capsule, which is erect, cylindric or oval, regular, 

 smooth. Annulus none. Operculum conical ; peristome of 4 triquetro- 

 pyramidal teeth, composed externally of pachydermous, elongato- 

 prosenchymatous, colored cells, internally of lax hyaline cells ; rarely 

 wanting. Inhabiting damp, shady rocks, rotten trunks of trees, or 

 turfy soil. 



Mr. Mitten constitutes of this family his section Elasmodontes, but 

 the teeth are not lamellar, for the peristome truly consists of a conical 

 mass, composed of the whole parenchyma within the operculum, or the 

 upper end of the columella united to the teeth, which splits into four 

 triangular pyramids formed of elongated incrassate cells. 



Ehrhart founded the genus Georgia in honor of our George the 3rd (to 

 whom also Hedwig dedicated his great work " Descr. et adumb. Muse, 

 frond."), and he says in his Beitnige iii, p. 126, " Hedwig's Tetraphis is .no 

 other than my Georgia. If botanists deserve a memorial of their names in 

 botany, equally worthy of the honor are great patrons of the science, as 

 my friend Hedwig must admit. I propose to give to my new genera the 

 names of such distinguished men, and thus the present bears the name of 

 one of the greatest supporters of botany." Ehrhart's Catharinea, Swartzia, 

 Weissia and Weberd must equally be retained, instead of the more modern 

 names which have displaced them, and of the same names subsequently 

 applied by other botanists to very different genera. Tetrodontium was 

 established by Schwaegrichen, no doubt from its different habit, but it 

 possesses no essential character of sufficient importance to separate it 

 from Georgia. Berggren, in an admirable paper, " Studier ofver Mossornas 

 byggnad och utveckling. 2, Tetraphidea" in Act. Univ. Lund, vii, n. 8 (1870), 

 points out that the frondiform leaves also occur in G. pelhicida, developed 

 from gemmules, but they appear in the protonemal stage preceding the 

 ordinary state of the plant, and disappear with its further development ; 

 a sketch of one of these spathulate fronds, reduced from Berggren's figure, 

 is given at T. IV, A. Fig. 9. 



The genus Georgia appears to touch various widely different families 

 without having much relation with any of them, thus the sulcate calyptra 

 forcibly reminds us of Zygodon and Orthotnchum, while the areolation of the 

 leaves is mnioid, and again the peristome is quite peculiar in the structure 

 of the teeth ; we may thus notice that a genus is not to be characterised 

 by any single organ, but rather by the sum of the differences found in all 

 its parts. 



