2 I 2 
The Distribution of the Hepaticce. 
Ferns, and most of the characteristic shore plants of the Eastern 
Tropics, e.g., Cocoa-nuts, Ipomoea pes-caprae, Casuarina, etc.; but 
as yet very few mosses have been found (Treub reported two 
undetermined species), and no Liverworts have been collected. It 
is not unlikely, when a careful search has been made in the 
central part of the island, where a forest growth has begun to 
develop, that some Hepaticae will be found ; but in a day’s collecting, 
keeping a special look-out for Hepaticae, the writer was unable to 
find a single specimen, and as we have already stated, none have 
been reported by other collectors. 
Inasmuch as Krakatau is within sight of Java and Sumatra, 
both of which have an extremely rich hepatic flora, the absence of 
these plants from the new flora of Krakatau is, to say the least, worthy 
of note. 
We may justly conclude then, that the distribution of the 
existing Liverworts indicates that they are ancient forms whose 
scarcity in a fossil condition is due to their very perishable tissues. 
It may be reasonably expected that a more rigid examination of the 
palaeozoic fossils by modern methods will add materially to the 
small number of fossils that have already been referred to the 
Bryophytes. 
While the Mosses are presumably a more recent and specialized 
group than Hepaticae, still their distribution indicates that they also 
must have been differentiated at a very early period. Such a genus 
as Sphagnum, for example, absolutely cosmopolitan, and yet 
peculiarly unfitted for rapid distribution, must be a very old type. 
