18 HEPATIC^. 



Subtribe V. SCAPANIOIDE^. 



Plants handsome and large leaved, often remarkable for their 

 colour, which is roseate, whitish, or yellowish. Stems arising 

 from a creeping caudex, erect or inclined downwards, sub-radicu- 

 lose, producing only a few lateral branches. Leaves alternate, 

 transverse complicato-bilobate with the antical lobule the smaller, 

 in most cases beautifully denticulate or ciliated at the margin, 

 sometimes even lobulate, naked, or in some species lamellose or 

 pilose on the upper surface. Stipules absent in most species but 

 present in a few, somewhat large bilobate and incised. Flowers 

 terminal on the stem, dioicous, rarely paroicous ; males di-poly- 

 androus. Female bracts in most species somewhat similar in 

 shape to the leaves but more equally lobed. Perianth in typical 

 species emersed, free, frontally compressed, often complanate and 

 decurved with a truncate mouth ; in a few others less compressed 

 and 5 to many-folded. Capsule robust, oblong, sometimes very 

 long. Elaters dispiral. Perhaps it might be better to regard 

 this subtribe as a section of the following; but it may easily 

 be recognised by its peculiar habit and complicate leaves, having 

 the antical lobe the smaller (and not the postical as in Radida, &c.). 



Subtribe VI. EPIGONIANTHE^. 



Plants very rarely small, often large and robust, varying in 

 colour from green to whitish or yellowish, sometimes purplish, 

 less frequently rosy. Stems either arising from a creeping caudex 

 and almost all rootless, or prostrate and more abundantly radicu- 

 lose, irregularly branched or dichotomously, rarely pinnate. 

 Branches almost always lateral, springing from the middle or 

 from the postical angle of the axil, very rarely truly postical, 

 that is, axillary with the stipules. Leaves succubous or trans- 

 verse (never incubous), alternate or opposite, somewhat large, 

 simple, bifid or 3-5-fid; the margin in the small species quite 

 entire as a rule, in the larger ones very often ciliate or with spiny 

 teeth, often much recurved at the antical portion of the base. 



