98 THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE LEAF OF FISSIDENS. 
the lower bracts; it was collected by R. J. Shuttleworth ‘In 
locis lucidis sylve ibang prope Bern This is the nearest 
approach that I have seen to the Yorkshire plant. I propose 
to name it Carex pilulifora, var. Leesti. 
N oF PraTE 218.— Carex pilulifera, L., var. Leesii. 1, fruit 
esi: 2, fruit of C. pilulifera (enlarged). 
THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE LEAF OF FISSIDENS. 
By Ricuarp Spruce. 
The leaves of Fissidens were or iginally 3-lobed ; with the baghe and 
longer lobe, by a half-turn on its axis, placed vertically, i +@., a right 
angles to the other two lobes oil to the base of the leaf, vohich is inserted 
transversely on the stem. As we now usually see them, the lobes have 
become connate ; the two lateral lobes complicate into an equitant sheath, 
and at the keel, but especially at the apex, winged with the vertical medial 
lobe ; but are still occasionally found more or less dissevered, as in the 
ancestral type 
a male flower of Fissidens sper hides I have found the 
chin 
leaves, and a more or less rudimentary nerve, reed extending to 
the base of bi vie See also ‘ Bryol. Eur c. 17, Fissidens 
— bryoid 2, f. 10, and Sullivant’s : hanes Muscorum,’ 
ae an irda Vy Oe me, f. 20, where male bracts, more or less 
distinctly 3-lobed, are figure 
Aa inte ower of “F, pusillus,’” Sch. Syn. ed. 
= F, viridulus, Sw., var. synoicus, one or both oi the bests is Me 
unfrequently seen 8 lobed. I found one instance of the innermost 
bract being reid canaliculate (not damplieatel: che: just above 
the middle into two lanceolate patent lobes ; the nerve (proceeding 
m the base of this leaf) forked at midway, dia'o one branch of the 
fork continued up each lobe to its apex. At the sinus was a minute 
tongue-shaped process, evidently the aborted iuadial lobe, or lamina, 
facet bbe. had been usurped by, and shared between, the two 
These cases, and other er are oe that might be cited, show 
conclusively that the leaf of Fissidens is really 3-lobed ; in the 
primitive Fissidens cloven parhate ‘heal or quite to the a the 
lobes having subsequently become ‘‘ connate” in the manner which 
