260 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



It is common in many parts of the southern counties, especially 

 in the central subalpine districts, and extending to both west 

 and east sides. It is rather common over the east, centre, and 

 north of the country to Shetland, ascending the hills to 4000 ft. It 

 is very rare in the West Highlands north of the Clyde watershed, 

 and is almost absent from the Hebrides. Although it has an eastern 

 distribution, especially marked to the north of the Forth and Clyde, 

 it is not so much confined to that side of the country as is L. Bauer- 

 iana, and its wide distribution over the south of Scotland is quite 

 different from that of the latter. It is widely distributed over the 

 northern half of England, but I have not sufficient information to 

 give particulars. 



Lophocolea alata Mitt, ex C. E. Larter, Trans. Devon. Ass. 

 Adv. Sc. Litt. & Art. p. 285, 1906. Mr. Mitten, shortly before his 

 death, sent to Miss Larter some notes and drawings of this plant, 

 with permission for their publication. I take the following notes of 

 his from the above Transactions. — "This hitherto undescribed 

 species has the aspect of Lophocolea bidentata, but the angles of the 

 triquetrous perianth are all widely alate ; the alse dentate." " So 

 different in its perianth from all other British species, yet nearly 

 allied to the L. coadunata of Swartz from Jamaica, having, like it, 

 free floral leaves and amphigastrium oval, yet appearing different 

 in areolation, and also in stature a little more robust.' ' He men- 

 tions that the plant is monoicous, and refers to the var. alata of 

 Synopsis Hepaticarum, of which " no specimens are available," and 

 which " appeared to the authors of that work to be a monstrous 

 variety of L. bidentata. 11 The drawings consist of an enlarged figure 

 of a perianth, bracteole, and piece of stem with leaves and under- 

 leaves. Below the leaves was written : " cells all same size, twice 

 the size of 2-dentata," but this has inadvertently been omitted in 

 the reproduction. The locality given is Lynmouth, August, 1875, 

 W. Mitten. 



Mitten stated in a letter to Miss Larter that he only picked a 

 small specimen of the plant "on half an inch of soil.** He evi- 

 dently could not know that it varied considerably in the characters 

 which he considered to be of consequence, and this makes it 

 necessary to reconsider its status. Since the publication of the 

 species I have seen a number of specimens of both it and the 

 closely related L. cuspidata Limpr. from different parts of the 

 country, and I have especially to thank Miss Larter for much 

 trouble taken in procuring many specimens of the former in various 

 stages of growth, from North Devon, not far from the original 

 locality. In judging the position of the plant, the perianth alone 

 is not a sufficient distinction, but the combined characters of the 

 perianth, bracts, and bracteole must be taken. In L. cuspidata one 

 or more angles of the perianth are occasionally winged and dentate, 

 but probably never to such an extent as is seen in well-marked 

 specimens of L. alata, though the size of the wings varies consider- 

 ably in the latter. In the former, one frequently sees only two of 

 the angles with more than one row of cells, and all the angles are 

 usually only obtusely keeled, while in the latter the three angles 



