TASMANIAN HEPATIC^. 



By R. a. Bastow, F.L.S. 



In popularly written botanical handbooks the Hepaticee are 

 usually not described, the authors chiefly confining their 

 attention to plants of larger growth. The phanerogamous 

 plants receive full notice ; the Ferns and Lycoijods may also be 

 described ; but here the line is usually drawn. The Mosses, 

 ITepaticce, Lichens, and Fungi are dismissed with some such 

 remark as that they are distributed throughout the world, 

 and are of no economical importance ; or that they form 

 beautiful transition from low to high organisation, and that 

 they are evascular. 



Few persons ever dreamed that earthworms were of any 

 importance until Darwin observed and described their habits ; 

 and, probably, quite as few are aware of the aid lent by the 

 Mosses and Hepaticce to the economy of nature in the forma- 

 tion of peat; it is not at all unlikely that the Hepaticce 

 cushioned the swampy ground ages ago, and contributed their 

 share in the structure of coal for the use of man at the present 

 day. It may, therefore, not be wasted time if we bestow a 

 little attention to the Natural Orders of Australasian Crypto- 

 gams, containing, as they do, the more minute forms of 

 plant life. 



I essayed during the last session of this Society to describe, 

 to the best of my ability, the Tasmanian Blosses, and now 

 venture upon a description of the Hepaticw. Doubtless, many 

 errors may be found that a more experienced and abler pen 

 would have avoided ; but as the reference to descriptions is a 

 first necessity in the study of Hepaticce, even if that reference 

 be but a poor one, and as the subject has not yet been taken in 

 hand since the publication of Hooker's " Flora Tasmanise," — 

 with the exception of the valuable supplement in Vol. XI. of 

 Baron von Mueller's " Fragmenta Phytographiee Australiae," 

 — and as those who reside far away from the city and are 

 desirous to know something about the Hepaticce that grow 

 in such profusion in the moist gullies and by the banks of 

 streams, but have no hand-book on the subject that they 

 can consult, I may venture to hope that the following com- 

 pilation may to some extent be useful, its many shortcomings 

 notwithstanding. 



The entire structure of some of the Hepatic<2 so resemble 

 the Mosses (PI. ii. f. 2) as to render them popularly regarded 



