278 
LUNULARIA VULGARIS, MICH. 
I take Lunulciria vuh/aris to be a widely distributed and 
common Hepatica in Great Britain. At the same time it 
appears to be exclusively confined to cultivated ground, and 
is, probably, in its origin an introduction. The same, however, 
may be said of many well-known cornfield weeds, which have 
long ago taken their place in the British Flora. 
Its favourite habitats are damp shady paths in gardens, 
neglected flower beds, crevices in old walls,—and it is often 
exceedingly abundant in greenhouses. I have seen it asserted 
that Asterella (Marcliantia) hemispJncrica is a pest to gardeners 
in this respect; but the plant intended is doubtless the one 
we are considering. 
In such situations, then, I have found Lunularia to be 
more or less plentiful throughout England; and Leicester¬ 
shire seems to produce it as abundantly as any other county 
known to me. Amongst county localities for it I may mention 
Birstall, Husband’s Boswortli, and the grounds of the Cister¬ 
cian Abbey, near Coalville. In the London Catalogue of 
British Mosses and Hepatics (ed. 1881) it is recorded from 
eleven out of the twenty-one provinces into which Watson 
has divided Great Britain, and also from Ireland. 
In calling Lunularia a common plant, I must be under¬ 
stood to refer only to an imperfect state of it. Both the male 
receptacles and the fructification seem to be extremely rare. 
Indeed, the “ Synopsis Hepaticarum ” says that it rarely 
perfects its fruit even in Southern Europe, whilst in the 
central and northern parts, where it is “per liortos cultura 
jam divulgata,” the plant is always barren. 
This, however, is not precisely the case, since I possess 
well developed fruit from Mineliead in Somerset, and I have 
seen other examples from West Cornwall. A friend of mine 
also informs me that he has seen it in fruit at Kew. 
In its barren state, as we usually see it, Lunularia consists 
of a pale green, somewhat shining frond, furcately divided 
towards the extremity, and dotted on the upper surface with 
pores. It adheres closely to the ground by means of abundant 
rootlets springing from a central rib on the under surface. 
Scattered here and there on the fronds are seen shallow 
depressions or cavities half surrounded by a crescent-shaped 
ridge, from which the generic name Lunularia, is derived. 
The depressions are filled with minute yellow-green roundish 
gennnules, which have the power of developing into fronds, 
and thus render the plant to some extent independent of 
sexual reproduction. 
These crescent-shaped “ apparatus gemmipari,” as the 
“ Synopsis” calls them, afford a ready means of identifying 
