BRITISH JUNGERMANNIiE. 
( J . Trichomanis.J 
Numerous as are the above synonyms, I am very far from sure that I have brought together 
all that really belong to this species, one of the most decidedly marked in the whole Genus, yet 
one which appears to have been less understood than almost any other. Wherever Dillenius has 
committed errors, they have been copied and multiplied by succeeding writers, and we stand but 
little chance of having them corrected, without recourse to the original specimens of this author, 
which, fortunately for science, are still in existence. By an examination of these specimens, it is 
clear that Dillenius figures 5 and 6, of tab. 31, are slight, and by no means unfrequent varieties of 
the same plant ; and these have been quoted under no less than six different names ! It would be 
neither a pleasing nor a useful task, to point out the errors of the older authors in their accounts of 
this species. Our countryman, Dickson, first well established it under the name of J. Trichomanis, 
and has given a tolerably good figure of it. The magnified representation of the leaf, indeed, is in- 
accurate, but altogether it does not merit the appellation which Mohr has applied to it, of “ pessima 
The part of the Flora Cryptogamica Germanica, of the last-mentioned author, containing the 
Jungermanr.iae, I have but lately received, and I am greatly disappointed in the assistance I had 
hoped to have derived from it. In his character of the species, which forms the subject of the 
present description, he has left unnoticed every thing that concerns the fructification; in his 
diagnosis he has compared it with J. pallescens fj. polyamhos, Linn.J, with which it has little in 
common; he has referred to Dillenius' (though doubtingly), tab. 69. f. 2. (our J. minuta) , as a 
variety; and he has brought Dickson’s J. serpyllifoiia to it as a synonym, than which nothing can 
be more unlike in all the essential characters. 
Wahlenberg, with great propriety, observes, in his valuable Flora Lapponica, "Stipularum 
forma omninb ut in J. cavifolia (our J. serpyllifoiia) Ehrh. sed folia diversissima, revera ovat.i et 
semper duplo majora, eximife hyalina et glaucescentia; qua not& habituali facilb a plerisque affinibus 
discernitur. Defectus strum® foliorum certissimum characterem prsebet. Capsulse insignithr 
oblongata.” p. 387. He is equally correct, when he says that the figure in English Botany "stipulas 
bicuspidatas exhibet.” 
1 have already had occasion to notice, under J. viticulosa, the peculiarities which this species 
has in common with that; and, at the same time, I pointed out the characters that distinguished 
them, which, indeed, are sufficiently apparent, even to those who are not very conversant with the 
Genus. The hairy calyx, and twisted capsule, are very remarkable, and circumstances which I 
believe are confined to the present plant. Anthers are at present unknown. The heads of Gemm® 
are born on elongated, nearly leafless portions of the stem, exactly as in J. bicuspidata, and, like 
that plant, too, the texture of the leaves and stipules is very delicate. 
