Notes on our Hepatice. IIf.1 
The distribution of the North American Marchantiacee. 
LUCIEN M. UNDERWOOD. 
The genus hitherto known as Fimériaria, one of the larg- 
est of the genera of marchantiaceous hepatics, has to suffer 
now for the failure in the past to recognize the rights of pri- 
ority; and strangely enough there seems to be considerable 
difference of opinion still as to the proper name of the genus. 
The case is as follows: In 1810 Palisot de Beauvais estab- 
lished the genus Asterella with two species, A. tenella (Mar- 
chantia tenella L.) and A. hemisphaerica (Marchantia hemis- 
phaerica L.). These are now recognized as belonging to two 
diverse genera. In 1818 Raddi established the genus Re- 
boutllia for the latter species and in 1820 Nees established 
the genus Fimbriaria (by error Fimbraria) for the group 
which now includes the former, though that species was not 
included in Fimériaria until 1838'. In 1829 Corda estab- 
lished the genus Hypenantron which is the equivalent of Fim- 
briaria. The genus Rhacotheca Bischoff (1844), and the genus 
Octoskepos Griffith (1849), were founded on species that will 
also be included in the same genus. 
The case as we see it now is perfectly clear, and yet Lind- 
berg (1868) complicated the matter by adopting the genus 
Asterella for Reboutllia, in which he was followed by Dumort- 
ler and many others, including recent American writers. 
Trevisan was the first to clear up the matter, but in his later 
work he fell from the estate he had reached and again wrote 
Asterella for Rebouillia. 1n his earlier position he was fol- 
lowed by Lindberg (in his later writings commencing with 
1879), by Massalongo and by many others. Trevisan in his 
later work (1877) was the first to adopt Hypenantron for Fim- 
briaria and in this he has been followed by Kuntze and 
Schiffner. 
It is clear that the genus Astere//a in 1818, after Raddi-had 
*Preceding numbers of this series are in this journal (1) 14: 191-198. 1888,— 
(2) 19: 273-278. 1 
*Marchantia tenella L. had the farther misfortune to be for a long time con- 
fused with one or more European species. 
[59] 
