INTRODUCTION. 
o a work, professing to give a description of the various species of Jungermannia} yet 
ascertained to be natives of the British isles, it appears desirable, if not indispensable, to 
prefix, by way of introduction, a short historical account of the genus itself, accompanied 
with some remarks upon its structure and peculiarities, and a few observations on those 
families which are most nearly connected with it. 
SECTION I. 
History of the Family. 
The earlier botanists, who have taken notice of the plants belonging to this genus, 
have almost universally designated them by the appellations either of Musci or Lichenes. 
By the latter term, Fabius Columna has described the first Jungermannia that we find 
any where upon record; his “ Lichen alter minor caule calceato," being very obviously, both 
from the description and figure, intended for our J. epiphylla* ; to which Dillenius and 
other subsecpient writers have referred it. 
It was not till the beginning of the last century, that the name of Jungermannia was 
first adopted ; a name given by Ruppiusf, to perpetuate the memory of Louis Jungermann, 
a German botanist, who was born in 1572, and died in 1653, after having published a 
catalogue of the plants of the neighborhood of Altorf, and a work entitled Cornucopia Flore 
Giessensis. He likewise gave considerable assistance to Besler, in his Hortus Eystettensis. 
In the Flora Jenensis, however, we find no particulars relative to the characters of this 
new genus ; nor do we, till Dillenius, imperfectly indeed, described the fruit of it in the 
Eph. Nat. cur. Cent, v., vi., and in the Appendix, p. 52, and again in his Flor. Giss., where 
he attributes to this tribe of plants, which he calls Lichenastrum, “Capitula monococca 
(quibus et pediculis brevioribus a Lichene differt), aut nuda, aut folliculo inclusa, aut 
petalodes quid habentia, florem nempc monopetalum quadrifidum imitantia, quae etiam loco 
apicum fcecundationem conciliarent plantae, licet semina desiderentur.” p. 84. He farther 
speaks, in the Supplement of the same work, of a double covering to the young capsule, 
evidently alluding to the calyx and corolla, as they have since been termed. 
* In his “ 
4to. p. 330. 
Minus cognitarum rariorumpie nostro calo orientium Stirpium Sic, 
f Flora Jenensis. 
Rom®, anno 1616, 
