BRITISH HEPATIC^. 79 



Texture thin but firm, little altered when dry, semi-pellucid. 

 Colour yellowish-green, olivaceous, ferruginous or dark-brown. 



Leaf-cells much smaller than in S. nemorosa, pellucid-punctate, 

 discrete, arranged in concentric series. Marginal cells smallest, 

 sub-quadrate, ttso" 'to two "5 those of the middle hexagonal, 

 T4oo" to Yx%^" ; basal cells ^' to ■^\^' by xim'- Walls thick, 

 especially at the angles; epidermis smooth (not papillose), contents 

 granular. 



Inflorescence dioicous. 



Fertile shoots scarcely differing from the rest. 



Involucrat bracts (f. 26, 8) two, with rounded lobules approach- 

 ing the inferior lobes in size, repand-denticulate. 



Colesule (f. 26, 8) half-immersed, smaller (xs"), cuneate-ob ovate, 

 compi'essed in the plane of the leaves, from a contracted sub-terete 

 base, apex truncate, irregularly incised, and fringed "with long close 

 teeth, in some forms minutely denticulate, decurved. Colour paler 

 than the leaves, with which it otherwise agrees in structure. 



Calyptra obovate, hyaline-reticulate, the cells large and trans- 

 lucent. 



Capsule minute for the size of the plant, oval, cinnamon- 

 coloured, dividing into four elliptic valves, thinner than in S. ne- 

 morosa. 



Fedicel about twice the length of the colesule, white, slender. 



Spores rufous, minute, sphseroidal, Tioo" in diameter. 



Maters bispiral, j^" long, by awo" broad. 



Male plants more slender. 



Ferigonial leaves collected in short terminal or interrupted 

 spikes, closely imbricated, erecto-patent ; lobes nearly equal, ven- 

 tricose at the base. 



Antheridia three to four, olive-green, ovate ; stipes slender, 

 striate, about equal to the anther in length. 



Gemmce abundant during the autumnal and winter months, 

 either forming balls on the terminal axis, or scattered irregularly 

 over the margins of the leaves, so that they appear erose-dentate. 

 They generally resemble the leaves in colour, so as to escape 

 attention unless looked for carefully. Detached particles golden- 

 brown, elliptic or sub-clavate, sometimes quadrangular. 



Obs. — I have done my best to investigate the synonomy of the present species, 

 devoting several days to the task, but the result has been anything but satisfactory, 

 and my sensations may, not inaptly, be compared with the bewilderment of a man who 

 has just landed from an experimental trip on the centrifugal railway. To the botanists 

 of this country, since the publication of Hooker's Jung., /. resupinata has been an 

 enio-ma. By some strange misconception, that author described another species under 

 the name {J. compacta, Eoth.), whilst he looked upon the true plant as a variety of 

 S. nemwosa. Later, Nees ab E., in Leber. Eur. i. p. 184 (1833), associated it with 

 S. undulata A, an error perpetuated in the Synopsis Hepat. of JSTees, Lindenb. and 



