HEPATICS. 
I'.y F. STEPHANI 
If these plants, collected by Welwitsch in Angola, had been 
examined twenty years ago, the greater part of them would have 
been new to us ; since that time, however, a great many Hepatics 
have come in from Western Tropical Africa, particularly from 
from the islands of St. Thomas and Fernando Po, as well as from 
the neighbourhood of the Cameroons Mountains, so that only eight 
new species remain, the descriptions of which are here inserted. 
As to the geographical description of the following Hepatics, 
there are some amongst them which have been found in all 
tropical countries, as EvXejmniaJlava Spruce, Frvllania squarrosa 
Nees, Dimiortiera hirsutu R, Bl. et N., Cyathodium cavemarum 
Kunze, Aneura pinguis Dumort., and Anthoceros communis Steph. ; 
others belong to the flora of tropical South America, like 
Lopholejeunea Sagrceana Spr., Cololejeunea crenatiflora Steph., and 
Symphyogyna brasiliensis Nees. Quite a number have been found 
also at the Cape : for instance, Lejeunea Breutelii, L. Pappeana, 
Ricciella Rautanenii, and Plagiochasma muricata. 
What remains is entirely of African origin ; and the most 
interesting specimen is Exormotheca pustulosa, formerly known 
from Madeira and Teneriffe. Recently a new species of this 
genus has been found in Eastern Tropical Africa ; so that it may 
safely be considered a tropical genus of that continent. Graf zu 
Solms-Laubach in a splendid paper [Bot. Zeit. (1897) pp. 1-16, 
tab. I.] has already expressed an opinion to this effect. 
1. RICCIA Micheli Nov. PI. Gen. p. 10G. t. 57 (1729) ; G. L. 
et N. Synops. Hep. p. 598 (1846). 
1. It. angolensis Steph. sp. n. 
Dioicous, Plant rather small, glaucous-green, gregarious. Frond 
5 to 6 mm. long, from a narrow base obcordate or obconic oblong, 
shortly furcate, with the forks widely divergent, shortly ligulate, 
widely rotundate at apex and shortly bilobed, everywhere almost 
plane, beneath the apex only exhibiting a short groove, on 
the postical side a little incrassate; costa convex, longly and 
gradually attenuated into the wings; margins thin. Frond in 
transverse section six times wider than thick; antical surface 
plane, postical widely Innate, with the angles longly acuminate, 
acute. Postical scales large, obliquely ovate, remote, spotted with 
purple, quite entire, longly produced. 
