20 BRITISH HEPATICiE. 



4. Nardia adusta. 



Pl. II. Fig. 6 {ex pa/rte). 



Paroicous. _ Shoots very minute, clavate, terete ; leaves few, 

 vertically imbricated, accrescent, sub-complicate, round, or broadly 

 ovate, from a ventricose sheathing base, acutely bilobed, the sinus 

 angular; cells large, hyaline; involucre ovate, conspicuous, the 

 segments erect, acute, lower half adnate. 



Gymnomitrivm adustmn, N. ab E. Leber. Eur. i. p. 120 (1833) ; G. L. N. 

 Synop. Hepat. p. 3, n. 4. Acolia brevissima, Bxim. Syll. p. 76, n. 109 (1831). 



Sarcoscyphus adustus, Spruce, Hep. Pyr. p. 196, n. 2 ; Trans. Ed. Bot. Soc. iii. 

 (1850); Hartm. Scand. Pi. ed. ii. p. 129. 



Nwrdia spwrsifoUa, (3 adusta, Lindb. MSS. (1873). 



Hab. Blackdown, Sussex, Juue 1855, Mr. Jenner 1 Castle Howard in saxis 

 umbrosis, R. Spruce 1 Rocks, Fairy Glen, Bettws-y-Coed, 1871 ! 



In England N. adusta is generally found in thinly-scattered tufts, intermingled 

 •with BrachyodMS trichodes and other species, on sandstone rocks. But the Welsh 

 specimens were more densely pulvinate, forming shallow patches of a lurid-brown 

 colour, and looking as if scorched, as the name implies. Numerous capsules are met 

 with in early summer. 



Primary shoots stoloniferous, creeping, attached to the ground 

 by numerous white rootlets. Stems ascending or erect, about a 

 line, or at most two lines in height, thick, fleshy, the cortical 

 stratum consisting of a single row of cells (fig. 6, 9), fasciculate ; 

 the older ramuli innovant from the apex. Barren shoots (fig. 6, 8) 

 scarcely a third the diameter of the fertile ones, terete, of nearly 

 the same thickness throughout, or only slightly incrassated at the 

 summit ; fertile ones stouter, clavate. 



Leaves increasing in size upwards, except on the barren shoots, 

 distant, fewer in number and comparatively larger than in 

 N. Ftmchii, seldom more than 5 to 8 pairs, bifariously imbricated, 

 vertical, near the base smaller, orbiculate, concave, amplexicaul, 

 upper ones gradually enlarging, erect and closely appressed to aach 

 other, complicate-concave, elliptic- ovate (fig. 6, 5) or broadly ovate, 

 from a dilated saccate sub-vaginate base, within which the anthe- 

 ridia often nestle. 



Apex acutely emarginate, the lobes angular; slightly inflexed, 

 sinus acute, equal to one-fourth of the length : sometimes the lobes 

 are more obtuse. 



Texture firm but translucent, little altered when dry. Colour 

 pale yellow or olive near the base, tips of the leaves and apex of 

 stem sphacelate. 



Cells hyaline, punctate, two or three times larger, and with 

 thinner, better defined walls than in N. FuncMi. Marginal cells 

 only differing from the rest in their quadrate form, two' *° Too " 



