3 20 JUNGERMANNIA CE^E. PART n. 



singularly graceful cups or baskets, whose edges are 

 sharply and regularly indented so as to form a glisten- 

 ing fringe of teeth, while each tooth is adorned with a 

 narrow^ fringe. When mature, the basket contains a 

 number of little green round or oval discs raised on 

 footstalks, and composed of two or more rows of cells. 

 As soon as these objects, called gonidia, are ripe, they 

 are detached from their stalks, and being washed out 

 of their basket by the rain, they quickly grow on the 

 moist earth around ; sometimes they germinate before 

 they leave their nest, and form irregular lobes on the 

 parent plant. The Marchantia polymorpha, so ad- 

 mirably constructed, occurs in all temperate climates, 

 and can bear considerable heat provided it has abun- 

 dant moisture. 



The Marchantiacese are divided into three groups, 

 containing fifteen genera, which are distinguished from 

 each other by the character of their fructification. They 

 are minutely described in Mr. Berkeley's c Cryptogamic 

 Botany;' and are widely dispersed both in temperate 

 and tropical countries, most of the genera being repre- 

 sented in Europe. 



The Jungermanniacese, or Scale Mosses, in their 

 lowest forms bear the same resemblance to Lichens 

 that many of the other Liverworts do. These lichenoid 

 forms are lobed, leaf-like masses, sometimes ribbed and 

 sometimes not. There are forty genera of this group 

 of plants, distributed amongst fifteen tribes, and ex- 

 hibiting great variety of form and structure ; but in 

 external aspect they are so closely connected, that a 

 graduated series may be traced from the flat-lobed frond 

 to the higher forms of erect-stemmed foliaceous plants, 

 approaching in size and structure to some of the 

 smaller mosses. 



The higher groups have a distinct upright stem with 

 symmetrical leaves, which leaves, however, in the lower 



