LIVERWORTS 105 



search must be made in out-of-the-way nooks and 

 corners, and that some amount of patience and 

 perseverance must be exercised if a real " find " 

 is to be made, should only prove an additional 

 incentive to the discovery of new habitats and 

 rare species. 



General Characteristics. As in the case of the 

 mosses, so with their near relatives the liverworts, 

 no cut-and-dried scientific definition would serve 

 any useful purpose in a simple work such as the 

 present. A personal acquaintance with a few of 

 the commoner kinds will soon suffice to enable 

 any one to recognise even those that have a strong 

 likeness to mosses, without much difficulty ; and, 

 should there at first seem room for doubt as 

 to the nature of any particular plant, a glance 

 through the magnifying-glass will generally serve 

 to dispel it. Erom the point of view of their 

 external form, liverworts naturally range them- 

 selves into two groups, namely, the leafy orfoliose 

 plants, and those that are frond-like or frondose. 

 The leafy liverworts often bear a close resem- 

 blance at first sight to mosses, consisting as they 

 do of a well-defined stem clothed with leaves ; but 

 on a nearer examination there are certain signifi- 

 cant features which will soon be recognised as dis- 

 tinctive of the tribe in general. In the first place, 

 the leaves are, as a rule, more delicate and 

 " filmy " in appearance, owing partly to the fact 

 that they are composed of larger cells, and partly 



