356 APPUNTI PER UN NUOVO CENSIMENTO DELLE EPATICHE ITALIANE 



» hours. Some specimens gathered by R.'"* M.' Forstrom Co years ago 

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

 » are on the contrary quite inodorate and tasleless. 



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

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

 )) being too small for any strict analysis I must for the prescnt content 

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

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

 » it 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 sevex'al days, and 

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

 » after smeli pietty 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 ihese qualities show that this 

 » oil {A et] ter oleum Hepaticarum) belongs to the class of the more thick- 

 » flovving. It is possible that it varies in some degree by the differenl 

 » 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 coU 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, VAelheroleum 

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

 hai-bifrons invece, nelle Lopliocolea, ed in alcune di esse le quali cre- 

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

 nhe^ a qualche <listanza n'è tradita la giacitura. 



Genova, aprile i86i. 



G DE NOTAR IS 



