root. Leaves alternate, bifarious, smallest at the
base and most distant, ovate and
concave, margins entire, adpressed
to the stem or a little spreading ;
the rest considerably larger, roundish
or subquadrate, spreading
sometimes recurved,base clecurrent,
margins with one or two or three
large spiny teeth, irregularly
placed, so that no two precisely
agree (fig. 82). Flowers dioicous.
Perianth longer than the cauline
leaves, emerging from the involucre,
obovate pear-shaped, turgid obtusely,
3 (rarely 4-5) angled, mouth
at first connivent, at length rather
toothed or ciliate. Calyptra pyriform, a little
smaller than the perianth, enclosing twelve abortive
pistillidia.
G e n u s 17. HYGROBIELLA, Spruce.
Stems with a rhizomatose base, fixed to the
matrix by root ing fiagella, wi thou t radicles.
Flagell iferous branches postical, loliose lateral
and axillary ; leaves transverse, complicately
bi lob ed; st ipules small or none. F lowe r s
dioicous. Per ianth large, fusiform or oblong,
obtusely tr igonous above, wi th a v e r y small
mouth.— 0 « Cephalozia p. 15.
Spruce, in comparing the typical species, says,
H. laxifolia recedes from Cephalozia in having
lateral branches, and in being (normally) quite
destitute of radicles, the stems rooting at the base
by means of short naked fiagella. The leaves are
complicate-bilobed, and there is no capitate involucre,
the uppermost leaves being alternate, and
often rather remotefrom the perianth. Moreover,t e
perianths are very narrow at the mouth, and almost
closed— not from being plicately constricted, as is
frequent in Cephalozia, but from the proper shape
of the constituent valves. The stem innovates
repeatedly (sometimes bilaterally) from the base of
successive sterile flowers.
Hyg-pobiella laxifolia, Hook., Dim.
Stem lax, near ly simple, leaves quadrifarious,
incumbent, lax, ovate, acutely two-lobed, peri-
chmtial twice as large, st ipules none, perianth
terminal, fusiform, rather plicate, mouth contracted.
T) T NT
Jungermannia laxijolia, Hook. Br. Jung. o.
5 6 ; Engl. Bot. t. 2677 ; Gott. and
Rabh. Exs. No. 345 : Carr, and
Pears. Exs. No. 68 ; Co o ke Hep. i.
l o i . Cymnocolea laxijoha, Dum. Rev.
Jung. p. 1 7 - Hygrobiella lax jolia.
Sp ru c e on Cephalozia, p. 74.
Beside mountain streams. (Fr. April.)
Growing in small dense green tufts.
Stems erect, thread-like, flexuous 4 ioch
long, slender, simple, or innovant, _pale
crreen. Leaves distant, alternate, arising
on four sides, smaller towards the base,
J
ft