54 MARCHANTIACEAE 
width : androecia with 6-12 antheridia, lightly papillate : 9 recep- 
tacle enclosing a single archegonium in each of the four lobes, 
maturing 2-4 (usually:3) sporogonia, subconoidal with lobes di- 
rected downward or only slightly spreading, very rarely becoming 
depressed-umbonate, 2.5-5 mm. in maximum width, containing - 
small air-chambers, nearly smooth, or, on drying, subrugose, 
densely surrounded when young and sessile by narrow paleae 
springing from its ventral surface or from the upper part of the 
peduncle, these usually persistent and conspicuous at maturity ; 
peduncle 10-40 mm. x .35-.55 mm., brownish-purple, becoming 
abruptly pale near the receptacle, pilose toward the base ; pseudo- 
perianth commonly violet, conical, finally obovoid-subpyriform, 
or subglobose, with 12-18 narrow or somewhat gaping clefts, the 
segments. cohering at the apex or often becoming free with age, 
sometimes flexuous and contorted, the margins commonly revolute: 
capsule nearly spherical, the apical third or half of its wall falling 
away in dehiscence in irregular fragments, leaving a subhemi- 
spherical cup with an erose-dentate margin ; spores yellow, be- 
coming brownish, 60-12 5 4, alveolate-areolate, with 4—7 areolae 
across each face, the pellucid margins finally broad ; elaters 180- 
а их 9-16 p, closely 2- ог 3-spiral, the bands yellow or slightly 
rown. ; 
On exposed or somewhat shaded banks. Olema, Marin Co. 
(Jepson); St. Helena, Napa Co. (Jepson); Ukiah, Mendocino Co. 
(Howe); Oak Run, Shasta Co. (Baker and Nutting); Jackson, 
Amador Co. (Hansen); Pasadena (McClatchie, Feb. 18, 1893— 
mixed with А, Palmeri). Collected also by Coulter and by Bo- 
lander, the precise locality unknown. Not known to occur out- 
side of California. 
Asterella violacea seems occasionally to approach A. Bolanderi, 
but is usually very distinct in the violet 12—18-с1ей pseudoperianth, 
the larger more conical 9 receptacle with less spreading lobes 
and more abundantly paleaceous-barbate beneath, and in the 
commonly larger spores and broader elaters. The violet colora- 
tion sometimes disappears from the pseudoperianth, but in such. 
cases a trace of purple is often to be detected on the outer in- 
volucre near its margin. 
PLATE 98. ASTERELLA УТОТАСЕА. 
т. Plant, natural size. 
2. Thallus, showing branching and the 4 and 9 innovations, Х 3. 
3. Thallus, natural Size, with the somewhat 1 dichotom branching 
