BRITISH JUNGERMANNL®. (J. albicans.) 
Female Fructification terminal. 
Calyx a line in length, ovate, rather attenuated at the base, towards the extremity 
longitudinally plicate; the mouth contracted and toothed. The reticulation is throughout 
formed of minute, somewhat ovate, cellules : the color is a yellowish green. 
Calijptra ovate, reticulated, whitish, tipped with a shoit hollow style, and surrounded 
at the base by a few short barren pistilla, which are a little swollen below, and arc, 
throughout, both longitudinally and transversely marked with darker lines. 
Peduncle three quarters of an inch in length, white, pellucid, shining, cellulose. 
Capsule ovate, reddish-brown. 
Seeds spherical; spiral filaments composed of a double helix: both of a fulvous color. 
The Var. grows in distant and smuggling patches; the stems, instead of being erect, as is usual 
with the plant, are procumbent, and throw out a few radicles here and there from nearly the 
whole length of their under side. 
The Leaves are nearlv erect, and the whole plant is of a dull, yellowish-red color. 
Gemma: are produce .h upon the extremity of the terminal leaves, there lying in small 
scattered clusteis, which are very soon dispersed. Each particle is somewhat spherical, 
with many acute projections or angles, of a pale yellow color and semi-transparent. 
Of the Jungermanniae exstipulatce, which have their leaves divided into two unequal and 
conduplicate lobes, four species* have been already described, according in general habit, as 
well as in the peculiar shape of the calyx, which is compressed, incurved, and truncate at the 
extremity. There is still another small family of the “ J unger mannire exstipulata:, foliis inaqualiter 
bilobis ,” which, though corresponding in many respects with the species just alluded to, 
nevertheless are found to differ from them essentially in the figure of the calyx : for in these it 
is cylindrical, erect, and plicate, and its mouth is contracted and dentated. Of such, I can 
mention, with certainty, one species alone, the subject of the present description, which has 
fallen under the observation of preceding writers: but two others, which I have named 
j obtusifolia and J. Dicksoni, have lately been added to the British list, and will soon make 
their appearance in this work. From them, J. albicans may be readily enough distinguished, 
by its much larger size, as well as by two marks still more decisive; one of which is to be found 
in the semtures of the leaves; the other in the pellucid, forked nerve, which, originating in the 
base of the leaf, occupies the centre of both lobes, and vanishes a little below their points. The 
difference in the shape and size of the cellules, which is the cause of this appearance, is, as far as 
I have had the opportunity of observing, peculiar to this species of the genus, and, although very 
evident, and observable even with the naked eye, it has not, that I am aware, been noticed by 
any author, except Weis, who well remarks of the leaves, that “per lentem nervo quasi divisa 
sunt et serrulata.” 
A celebrated French Botanist, M. Palisot Beauvois, has not only endeavored to controvert the 
Hedwigian system with regard to the sexual organs in mosses, but in the order IlepaLcce, 
• J. nemorosa, J. unduluta, J. resupinala, and J. umbrosa. 
