Evans: THREE SOUTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF ASTERELLA 471 
CHILE: near Santiago, 1915, NV. Costes (N. Y.).* 
The type material was collected by Bertero near Quillota; 
Stephani has since reported the species from Pelaquén, P. Dusén 
(in Bih. K. Svensk. Vet.-Akad. Hand]. 26 (3°): 17. 1900). 
According to Montagne’s account the capsules of the original 
material were immature, making it impossible to give any data 
about the spores and elaters. The description of the gametophyte, 
however, is unusually full and discusses certain histological 
features which were usually ignored at that time. It calls atten- 
tion, among other things, to the thallus broadening out from a 
narrow linear base; to the elevated pores, making the epidermis 
appear undulate in cross section; to the large air chambers in the 
green tissue, arranged in a single layer; to the coarsely tuberculate 
receptacle, three- or, rarely, four-lobed to the middle, with veiny, 
truncate lobes; to the apical paleae of the peduncle; to the rela- 
tively short pseudoperianth, with six to eight divisions, free at 
maturity.. There is little to criticise in his account, except that 
the undulate appearance of the epidermis is not always striking 
and that the air chambers are in more than one layer in the median 
portion of the thallus. As a matter of fact they are in one layer 
toward the margin, and the more deeply situated median cham- 
bers are difficult to demonstrate in dried material. Stephani, in 
his description, assigns a paroicous inflorescence to the species, 
noting the androecium at the base of the peduncle, and adds that 
the spores are yellow, rough, and broadly winged and that the 
elaters are hyaline and bispiral. He places the species in the 
same group as A. tenella, A. macropoda, and A. Lindenbergiana» 
on account of the shape of the receptacle, which he describes as 
shortly conical and obtuse at the apex. 
In general appearance A. chilensis bears a strong resemblance to 
A. tenella and A. Ludwigit, and the species agree further in their 
dichotomous branching; in their paroicous inflorescence; in their 
normally eight-cleft pseudoperianths, the divisions of which 
become free at maturity; and in their yellow spores with broad 
wings along the edges and a coarse surface-reticulum, at least on 
the spherical faces. Of course the structure of the green tissue 
* In the citation of specimens “‘N. Y." signifies the herbarium of the New 
- York Botanical Garden and “‘ Y," the herbarium of Yale University. 

