LUNULAKIA VULGARIS, MICH. 
277 
highly developed ; and we cannot fail to admire the wisdom 
displayed in the wonderful provision for the growth and 
reproduction of this plant:— 
In the thallus by its power to endure the extremes of 
climatic changes of heat and cold, of drought and moisture, 
without injury. In the power of the apotliecium to produce a 
succession of new asci and spores instead of perishing after 
the first batch of spores was mature, as a flower would fade 
and die ere its seeds were fully formed and ripened. And, 
lastly, in the provision which the soredia make for the 
perpetuation of the plant when circumstances are unfavourable 
for the formation of spores. So here, in the lowly Lichen, as 
wherever else we approach it, Nature seems to say—“ The 
hand that made us is divine.” 
If any of our friends would wish to study more of the 
British Lichens, I would refer them to the works of the 
Bev. W. A. Leighton, B.A., W. L. Lindsay, M.D., or to the 
excellent papers by Mr. W. Phillips, F.L.S., in the “ Midland 
Naturalist” for 1880. 
LUNULAKIA VULGAKIS, MICH.* 
BY KEVD. H. P. READER, M.A. 
The Hepatica on which I intend to make a few remarks 
seems to be an addition to our county list; at the same time 
I can hardly feel that in this case I am recording a novelty 
so much as calling attention to a plant which is familiar to 
many of us, hut has not so far been discriminated. 
Lunularia vulgaris, Mich, belongs to the Scliizocarpous 
section of the order Marchantiacese. It is in fact the Mar- 
chantia cruciata of Linnaeus, and is so called by most of the 
older botanists, with the exception of Gray, who prefers to 
term it Staurophora pulcheUa. 
Lunularia, however, differs structurally from Marchantia 
and its nearest allies in no slight degree. The differences 
are principally in the fructification, which is rarely found, 
and thus an imperfect knowledge of the plant may perhaps 
have caused it to be referred to a genus to which it certainly 
does not belong. What these differences are I shall explain 
in the course of this paper. 
* Transactions of Section D of the Leicester Literary and Philo¬ 
sophical Society. Read March 19tli, 1884. 
