The Morphology of the Thallus and Cupules of Blasia pusilla

First mention of the genus Blasia was made by Micheli Nov. Pl. Gen. 1729. Linnaeus recognized the genus and added the specific name pusilla in his Species Plantarum 1753 p. 1138. In 1759 Schmidel wrote his \u27\u27Dissertatio de Blasia.\u27\u27 Hooker 1816 called the plant Jungermannia blasia but as this classification is much too broad it is not used today. Gottsche 1828 published an account of the germination of the spores of Blasia piusilla. Later Grönland published his investigations of spore germination in the leafy Jungermanniae, including Blasia in his discussion. In 1833, Nees von Esenbeck made some investigations on vegetative propagation and erroneously stated that the bud-receptacles (cupules) of Blasia are closed when young and open at the top at a later period. An incorrect figure of Hedwig\u27s had probably given rise to this error. Hofmeister included in his work on The Higher Crytogamia, a short sketch of vegetative reproduction in Blasia, but some of his views are probably as faulty as those of Nees von Esenbeck