/./. tomentella J 
BRITISH J UNGERM ANNIiE. 
Stems * from two to three and even four f inches in length, and about the half of a line in 
breadth, nearly erect, flexuose; the primary division, which takes place near the base, is 
generally dichotomous, the rest of the plant is pinnated with patent, alternate, and 
somewhat distant branches, from three to five lines in length, which are, in like 
manner, often again beset with still shorter pinnulae. The extreme ones are very 
slender and zigzag, somewhat resembling the rachis of an ear of barley. The texture is 
every where firm and compact, closely cellular, particularly in the lower part, where it 
is of a brownish hue ; the rest is of a yellow-green color. 
Leaves (f. 4) about half a line long, but, what is remarkable, scarcely larger on the main 
part of the stem than on the secondary branches; thus appearing as if these stems had 
outgrown the leaves, which are in that part also distantly placed : in the rest of the 
plant they are more or less closely imbricated over the upper part of the surculi, and 
at the extremity they form a thick head or tuft. Each is patent or horizontal with 
regard to the stem, divided into two unequal lobes, of which the lower one is the 
smallest, plane, conduplicate with the upper one, and appressed to its under surface : the 
superior L.be is plane, or very slightly convex, acutely cleft nearly down to the base 
into two linear or lanceolate segments, whose apices and margins, as well as those of 
the lesser lobe (though not in so great a degree), are divided and subdivided into many 
capillary segments of various lengths, and as variously curved, which give a tomentose 
appearance to the whole plant, and render the true figure of the leaf very difficult to be 
observed. The cellules of the leaf are oblong, rather large in proportion to its size; in 
the narrowest part of the branched segments they occupy the whole diameter, thus 
haiing a jointed appearance, resembling that of many Confervse, and the curious leaves 
of Jungermannia trichophylla and setacea : and, like them too, the joints in drying are 
here and there frequently contracted. Their color is almost always a pale green, 
resembling that of J. incisa, though sometimes, as Mr. Lyell has observed, varying to a 
deeper hue; which happens, probably, whenever the plant grows in less exposed 
situations than usual. 
In the Perigonial leaves I can distinguish no difference whatever from the rest. 
Periehatial leaves (f. 7) wholly wanting, unless the pubescence that arises from the 
exterior surface of the calyx may be looked upon as such. This is composed of minute, 
capillary, and slightly-branched processes, which, under a high power of the microscope, 
are seen to resemble the narrowest of the latinise upon the leaves, and like them have 
the jointed appearance of a Conferva. 
Stipule one to every pair of leaves, subquadrate; generally about the wirlth of the stem, 
cleft at the apex into a number of very narrow, and, frequently, branched segments. 
Male Fructification. Anthers situated on the upper surface of the stem, in the axilke of the 
leaves, spherical, reticulated, of a greenish hue, and placed at the extremity of a short white 
footstalk. 
* When the plant is dry, the distantly placed stipules, on the larger part of the stem, become visible, and. give 
it the appearance of being jointed. 
t Haller desenbes them as reaching to the length of half a foot, in the neighborhood of Berne, in Switzerland. 
