356 APPUNTI PER UN NUOVO CENSIMENTO DELLE EPATICHE ITALIANE 



» hours. Some specimens gathered by R. ud M. r Forstrom 60 years ago 

 » at Guadeloupe stili keep some of their taste. The older brown parts 

 » are ou the contrary quite inodorate and tasteless. 



» I distdled the supply of moss, I had got several times with water; 

 » the oil I obtained grew of course at last quite pure, but the quantity 

 » being too small for any strict analysis I must for the present content 

 » myself with the following scanty informations. — The oil is at common 

 » temperature opacous with a faint teint of green. At about -+- 60 cels. 

 » il is not yet quite clear and somewhat thickflowing, it pass over in the 

 » condenser perceptively first at above 100 degrees. It seems not to be 

 » very volatile, for a fiew small drops left in a open and dry vessel in 

 » warm place had not perceptively diminished after several days, and 

 » a scrap of paper on wich some oil had been spilt did some weeks 

 » after smeli pretty strongly. 



» Poured in water the oil sinks to the bottom of the vessel, its 

 » specific weight is consequently greater than that of the water. The 

 » smeli is the same as that of fresh Livermosses, though of course more in- 

 » tensive, not disagreeable. The taste is sharp and remains long, it reminds 

 » at once of camphor and turpentine. Ali these qualities show that this 

 » oil (Aetheroleum Hepaticarum) belongs to the class of the more thick- 

 >i flowing. It is possible that it varies in some degree by the different 

 » species, but the diversity must in general be very small, because the 

 » taste is, except with regard to the sharpness, very much the same with 

 » them ali. » 



Non ho difficoltà ad ammettere coll'amico D. Lindberg che essenzial- 

 mente non differisca da specie a specie il principio odorante delle Epatiche; 

 ma osservo che nelle Madotheca, presso di noi almeno, Y Aetheroleum 

 Hepaticarum è pochissimo sensibile, poco o nulla volatile. In Grimaldia 

 barbifrons invece, nelle Lophocolea, ed in alcune di esse le quali cre- 

 scono in località costantemente umide, riesce invece volatilissimo, al punto 

 che a qualche distanza n' è tradita la giacitura. 



Genova, aprile i863. 



G. DE NOTAR IS. 



