MOSSES WITH A HAND-LENS 151 



HEPATICAE. Hepatics. 



HERE has been a considerable demand for a simple book 

 on the hepatics. To meet this demand I have prepared 

 this treatment of the subject. With the Queen %-inch 

 achromatic triplet I am able to make out the more 

 minute structures mentioned in the keys. Many of 

 them, especially leaf structure, can not be made out satisfactorily 

 unless the objects be mounted in water on a slide in the same 

 manner as for a compound microscope. 



In working up the key I have been surprised to find that 

 sterile hepatics are, as a rule, much easier to identify than sterile 

 mosses. Many of the species maturing their spores in early 

 spring have the spores and capsules pretty fully developed in the 

 preceding autumn so that some of the sporophyte characters 

 are nearly always accessible. Hepatics shrivel more than mosses 

 in drying and are best studied while fresh, especially the thalloid 

 forms. 



A few of the rare genera are omitted and some of the minute 

 or difficult species are not included. 



The Germans call the true mosses Laubmoose, meaning leafy 

 mosses, and the hepatics, Lebermoose, or liver mosses. The 

 name Liverwort was originally applied to Marchantia because of 

 its fancied resemblance to the liver. Because of this resemblance 

 it was supposed to be a specific for all liver troubles according 

 to the old doctrine of signatures. From this came the Latin 

 name Hepaticae and the German Lebermoose. " Thus does the 

 language of ignorant superstition become the adopted language 

 of science." 



The chief distinctions between mosses and hepatics have been 

 noted in the introduction, but a few additional notes here may 

 prove helpful. 



The hepatics may be leafy stemmed and appear much like 

 mosses, or they may consist of a broad, flat and rather thin 

 plant body (thallus) which is usually closely applied to the 

 substratum. These thalloid hepatics might be mistaken for some 

 of the foliaceous lichens, but the hepatics are always much 

 greener and produce spores in a very different manner. Hepatics 

 generally grow in moist situations on soil, roots of trees, and 

 decaying wood. 



In the leafy-stemmed hepatics, often called Scale Mosses, the 



