HANDBOOK OF BRITISH HEPATIC.E. 



87 



amongst mosses. Stems creeping, horizontal ^ to 

 I h inch long, thread-like, flexuous, 

 greenish or yellowish, irregularly 

 branched, growing in a stellate manner, 

 branches beset with spreading or hori- 

 zontal pinnae, extremities sometimes ob- 

 tuse, sometimes attenuated, under side of 

 the stem bearing flagellar. Leaves im- 

 bricated on the upper surface, closely 

 so, for the most part, but on the 

 branches and innovations more distant 

 and smaller, all spreading or horizontal, 

 pointing a little to the end of the branch, 

 nearly quadrate, convex, incurved at the 

 apex, divided into four (or three, and sometimes 

 five) acute teeth (fig. 64). Colour pale green, peri- 

 chaetial leaves six or eight at the base of each calyx, 

 exterior the smallest, all ovate, convex, and cut into 

 three or four small teeth at the apex, nearly white. 

 Stipules twice the width of the stem, somewhat 

 quadrate, very convex, deeply cut into four acute 

 segments. Calyx sub-mcmbranaceous, nearly white, 

 oblong, somewhat plicate at the apex, mouth 

 dentate, capsule deep brown. Elaters bispiral. 



64. 



Lepidozia tumidula, Tayl. 



Stem procumbent, bipinnate, branches de- 

 curved, flagelliform, leaves closely imbricate, 

 vertical, obliquely rounded-quadrate, quadrifid, 

 segments acuminate, ascending; stipules 

 rounded-quadrate or subcordate, convex, 

 spreading, quadrifid, entire. 



