INTRODUCTION. 
Roth has scarcely made a less excellent use of the labors of others, and has drawn 
up a concise account of the different parts of the fructification, summing up the whole in 
the following words : 
“ Caps, subrotunda, set® nudaj insidens, unilocularis, apice dehiscens : valvulis 
quatuor patentibus. Masculi floris perianthium nullum.” 
After the valuable discoveries of Schmidel and lledwig, and the satisfactory reasons 
they had assigned for what they supposed to be the male and female fructification, it is 
rather surprising to find an able naturalist of ourjiay, M. Palisot de Beauvois, controverting 
their system, and establishing a theory of his own ; according to which, he considers the 
anthers to be the female fructification, and the capsules the male; and forms characters 
almost wholly from the former, which differ so little in all the species that I have had the 
opportunity of examining. Thus, having restored the Michelian genus, Muscoides, in his 
Flore d’Oware et de Benin, but changed its name to that of Carpolopedium, he gives the 
following character : 
“Flores Masculi ; In ramulis distinctis ; pedunculati, globosi aut ovati, quadrifidi : 
Lacin'ufi sequales, intus filamentosie ; filamentis elaslicis, articulatis, pulverulentis, 
aliorum vegetabilium stamina aemulantibus ; pedunoulus albus, mollis, membra- 
naceus, pellucidus ; vagina oblonga, seu pericluetio sessili, monophyllo, calyciformi 
infra cinctus. 
“Flores Fjeminei ; In ramis distinctis: Fructus ovatus, aut globosus, brevissirne 
pedunculatus, acumine parvo, styliformi acuminatus, solitarius, sub squamis bifarie 
imbricatis : Ramuli medio plerumque crassiores, supra infraque attenuati, foliis 
distichis instructi.” 
Hence it appears, as well from the above character of his genus, as from the species 
that the author enumerates as belonging to it, that he has attributed to the female (his 
male) fructification of J. albicans, J. platyphylla, J. dilatata, &c., distinguishing marks 
which they really have in common with all the rest of the species ; except, indeed, when 
he says that their elastic filaments are “ articulata ,” which does not hold good in any 
species. And in describing the male fructification (our female), his character would be 
such as to include, I think I may say, all the J unger mannuefoliosa, were it not that he 
states the “ fructus ” to be “ acumine parvo styliformi acuminatus,” a peculiarity which I 
cannot find to exist in any species, and certainly not in any of those he points out as 
belonging to this genus ; not even his own Carpolopedium dichotomum, with specimens of 
which he himself obligingly favored me. 
The genus . Marsilea , likewise, he has adopted under the name Rhyzophyllum, and 
proposes treating of it in a part of his Aetheogamie, which is, I believe, not yet published. 
A short notice of it, however, is given in the Flore d'Oware et de Benin already mentioned, 
where he thus speaks of it, and of his Conianthos ( Jungermannia , Mich.). “Nous ne 
pouvons non plus nous dissimuler que, dans le Rhyzophyllum ( Marsilea , Mich.) les fleurs 
femelles ou semences sont eparses sous l’epiderme, tantot a l’extremite des lobes des 
feuilles, tantot danstoute leur longeur; que, dans le Conianthos (. Jungermannia , Mich.) ces 
memes fleurs ou semences sont nues et rassemblees en boule au sommet de quelques 
c 
