REVIEW. 
BRITISH HEPATICS. 
710R many years the students of these plants have felt the need 
JJ of a work to give them further information and abetter means 
of identification than could he obtained from the works of Cooke, 
Carrington, and Lett. This want was, to some extent, supplied by 
Pearson’s “ Hepaticae ” (1) but the cost of this work was beyond the 
reach of many bryologists, and there was still plenty of room for a 
Manual at a less price and of a similar character to Dixon’s hand¬ 
book on the mosses (2). Hepaticologists can now rejoice in being 
able to possess such a work (3) and must feel deeply grateful to its 
author for the careful attention he must have devoted to the subject, 
in order to produce such an excellent handbook, remarkable not 
only for its lucid descriptions and notes, but also for its scientific 
accuracy, a combination not always obtained from systematists. 
The introduction gives a short and general account of the life- 
history of a liverwort, with some excellent notes on the collection 
and examination of specimens. The classification is based on 
Schiffner, many of the descriptions of the higher groups being taken 
directly from the works of this distinguished hepaticologist, but the 
author has not neglected the works of Campbell, Evans, Howe, 
Muller, Spruce, Stephani and Cavers, the recent papers (4) of the 
latter being responsible for the elevation of the Sphaerocarpales to 
ordinal rank. 
More species are given as British than in any previous work, 
this increase being partly due to recent discoveries and partly the 
result of segregation. The author can, however, hardly be con¬ 
sidered to be a “ splitter,” neither can he be charged with being a 
“lumper,” in media re sains, seems to be an excellent motto in this 
matter. 
Calypogeia, long known to British botanists under the name of 
Kantia, has seven species assigned to it, five others besides the 
distinct C. Trichomanis and C. arguta taking specific rank. The 
thi 'ee larger species, Trichomanis, Neesiana and fissa (Kantia 
Sprengelii, Pears.) are chiefly distinguished by the underleaves, 
which often vary in the same plant, and great difficulty is often 
experienced in deciding which of these names a specimen should 
bear, so that, at most, they can only he considered as “ small 
species.” C. sphagnicola, snhmersa, and suecica must be treated 
similarly, their specific distinctions from small forms of C. Tricho¬ 
manis being of a more or less doubtful nature. A variety aquatica 
is given for C. Trichomanis whilst the equally definite aquatic form 
of C. fissa is not mentioned. 
Plagiochila has six species allotted to it, P. Stableri, “although 
only once collected and in small quantity,” being judged as a distinct 
species. I have found occasional shoots of P. asplenioides var. 
humilis with an appearance almost exactly like that figured for P. 
Stableri, and as the original specimen was mixed with some of this 
variety, it may be a modification induced by edaphic conditions; 
P. exigua is reduced to a habitat-form of P. tridenticnlata, P. 
killarniensis to a variety of P. spinnlosa and P. Oweuii to a variety 
of P. punctata. 
