Moore — On Irish Hepaticm. 593 



Altogether, the subject is handled by him in a masterly way, and 

 ■whether his new divisions and nomenclature be adopted or not by 

 future botanists, his paper is a very important contribution to science. 

 He divides the Hepaticse into three sections. 1. March an tiacese. 

 2. Jungermanniaceae. 3. Anthocerotaceae. This is no great departure 

 from the arrangement of previous authors. These are again grouped 

 under sub-sections, according to the nature of the valves of the capsule, 

 whether splitting into pieces when ripe or remaining whole, viz., Schi- 

 -zocarpte and Cleistocarpge. 



The Jungermannise Schizocarpse are divided into two principal 

 divisions differing from each other in several important characters, which 

 are fully described, but chiefly depend on the position which the Gamce- 

 €ium and Androecium occupy on the plants. These he calls {a) Anomo- 

 gamse ; {V) Homogamae, and the latter he still further divides into 

 * Opisthogamge ; and ^''^' Acrogamee. By these divisions he has 

 been enabled, in my opinion, to group the species together more 

 naturally (with a few exceptions) than has been done by any pre- 

 vious author. What may, however, be found fault with is Dr. 

 Lindberg's endeavour to restore the names of genera in exact con- 

 formity with the law of priority. The dates are so carefully and 

 clearly set forth along with the name of each genus, that there can be 

 no disputing the matter. It is well known that Mr. S. F. Gray, father 

 •of the late Dr. J. E. Gray, of the British Museum, was the first to 

 subdivide the comprehensive genus Jungermannia into smaller genera, 

 to which he gave names in his "Arrangement of British Plants," 

 published in 1821, a fact which had already been established by Mr. 

 Carruthers, Director of the Botanical Department, British Museum, in 

 Seemann's Journal of Botany, vol. iii., p. 297. These names of 

 Gray's Dr. Lindberg has in many instances adopted, though some of 

 them sound very oddly, after we have been so long accustomed to the 

 ■established nomenclature of such a standard work on Hepaticae as the 

 " Synopsis Hepaticarum," by Drs. Gottsche, Lindenberg and JN^ees, 

 published between 1844 to 1847. That there is a farther want of some 

 recognised standard in the nomenclature of this family of plants is 

 obvious, and may be seen from the numerous synonyms of various 

 authors which Lindberg and Du Mortier have brought together. 



The veteran Belgian Botanist, M. Du Mortier, having published 

 his first work onHepaticae, " Commentationcs Botanica)," so long back 

 as 1822, and others of importance on the same subject, at intervals 

 from that period till 1874, when his large work " Hepaticae Europae" 

 was published, has all that time been altering and improving the dis- 

 tinguishing characters of the sub-orders and so-called genera of 

 this family of plants, yet in the last work new divisions and new 

 names of genera are to be found. 



The characters of Hepaticae, though pretty constant, and sufficient 

 to distinguish the genera, are by no means so satisfactory as those of 

 the Mosses. Dr. Taylor, all his life, held the opinion that it was 

 impossible to distinguish satisfactorily the genera of Jungermannia 



3 II 2 



