Abstract
PROBABLY no group in the British flora has received so little attention as the Hepaticæ. This is due partly to the ordinary botanical text-books describing merely the life history of the ubiquitous Marchantia polymorpha, and ignoring or passing over with but scanty reference the fohaceous group. But chiefly is it due to the want of a handbook by which beginners could identify their plants and obtain references to the literature of the subject. Sir W. J. Hooker's magnificent monograph, which appeared in 1816, contained plates with copious descriptions of all the British species then known; but it is now scarce, costly, and having all the species described under one generic name Jungermannia it becomes necessary, after identifying a plant by it, to refer to some other source to ascertain the now accepted name. Hooker's “English Flora,” vol. v., in dealing with the same group, divides the frondose group into several genera, but retains the generic name of Jungermannia for the whole of the fohaceous group.
Handbook of British Hepaticæ.
By M. C. Cooke 1 vol. 8vo. 310 pp. 7 plates. 200 woodcuts. (London: W. H. Allen and Co., 1894.)
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W., C. Our Book Shelf. Nature 49, 220 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/049220a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049220a0