1892. ] Briefer Articles. ‘“ 
BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
Carl Moritz Gottsche.—Carl Moritz Gottsche, who died Sept. 28th, at 
Altona, near Hamburg, was born there July 3, 1808. He has beena 
practicing physician in his native village for over a half century, and 
* during an equal period, an ardent student of the Hepaticae, issuing a 
large number of publications thereon which vary from a few pages of 
critical notes to elaborate monographs. From his first serious publi- 
cations in 1843-5! down to his work in recent years there cannot be 
said to be a single careless issue from his hand. In order to more 
satisfactorily illustrate his papers, he early learned the art of the en- 
graver and hissuccess in this direction can best be seen in his papers, 
especially in the matchless plates of his Mextkanske Levermosser. 
His botanical interest commenced with the group he continued to 
study. Infact his contributions to other botanical fields are scarcely 
worth mentioning in comparison. His first papers were chiefly 
morphological and dealt on the one hand with that curious link be- - 
tween the thallose and foliose Hepatice, Haplomitrium Hookeri, and 
_ the equally curious but scarcely circumscribed marsupiocarpous Hepa- 
_ticae which he called “Jungermanniae Geocalyceae.” In 1844-1847 ap- 
peared the Synopsis Hepaticarum which was the combined work of Got- 
tsche and two older men, Lindenberg and Nees von Esenbeck. Although 
the former had published a monograph of the European species as 
early as 1829? followed by the more elaborate one by the latter in 
1833-38,? Gottsche’s name appears first on the title page and it is 
evident that he did a large part of the work. This work contains de- 
scriptions of over 1600 species of Hepaticae and is the last summary 
of the group that has appeared, although the number of known species 
has more than doubled, He was further associated with Lindenberg in 
publication of Species Hepaticarum (1839-5 1), an elaborate work 
tempting to illustrate all the known species, which for lack of support 
pped short with the genera Plagiochila, Lepidozia and Mastigobryum 
L ania}. In 1856 he became associated with Rabenhorst in issuing 
cates of European Hepatic (Hepatice Europex) which extend- 
© 66 decades (nos. 1-660), and which owe their chief value to 
r0ttsche’s elaborate notes and icones which appear on the labels to 
the specimens. It is unfortunate that the numbered specimens of this 
ies were often carelessly put up and sometimes badly mixed; while 
Anatomisch-physiologi tiber Haplomitrium Hookeri 
a3 oe eee at errscgermannie Geocalyeee. (1845). Botb 
Papers were published in Acta Acad. Caes.-Leop. 
*Synopsis Hepaticarum Europaearum. 4to. Bonn, 1829. 
pe techichte der europiischen Leberm-oose. 4 vols, 12° ., Berlin and 
au, 1833-38. i 7 
