l^HE IVtOSSES OF DUTCH NEW OrtNEA.' 477 



The Mosses of tlie WoUustou ExpoJition to Dutch New Guinea, 1912-13 ; 



with some additional Mosses from British New Guinea. By H, N. 



Dixon, M.A,, F-L.S. 



(Platks 28, 29.) 



[Read 4th XovemLer^ 1920.] 



It was Intended to publir>li the Mosses of the WoUaston Expedition in the 

 ^'eneral Botanical Report (Trans, Linn. Soc, ser, 2, Bot. vol. ix. pt. 1^ 191G), 

 but Mr, C. H. Wright, to whom they were entrusted^ was unable to work 

 them out in time for that publication, and they were subsequently placed in 

 my hands for determination. Though the collection was not a large one, 

 consisting of some sixty gatherings, it proved to be highly interesting, 

 including types of two new genera and more than a dozen new species, 



I have added to the above an account of a further collection made by the 

 llev, "J, B. Clark, oE the London Missionary Sot iety, on an expedition to 

 Mt. Durigolo, an outlier of the Owen Stanley Range, in the neighbourhood 

 of Boku, in the Fort Moresby District, in 1916, wdiich also contained several 

 novelties, including a now species of Pterohi'f/ella^ and a very remarkable 

 minute species, probably of Rhizogonium^ but o£ soinc^what doubtful affinity. 



The moss-flora of New Guinea affords, perhaps, the most interesting field 

 for the present-day bryologist. Large tracts of Central Africa remain no 

 loubt comparatively unexplored, and recent discoveries there show that 

 much is still to be expected of bryologicai interest (Leptodontiopsis. Broth., 

 Kleioweisiopsis, Dixon, new genera, may be mentioned, and new s[tecics of 

 Cyathophorum. lixitenherqia^ and Micropoma). But the flora is more 



( 



distinctly continental and continuous, and the novelties are as a rule less 

 distinct from known species, and loss striking. Everyone who has done 

 much systematic botanical work realizes that the description of a number of 

 new species of the larger genera, while a necessary and to some extent a 

 valuable part of taxonomic botany, is an uninteresting and very unexciting 

 occupation, compared with the elucidation of new forms, however few, only 

 distantly connected with known genera or species. For it is these which 

 raise new problems^ or help to solve old ones, in vegetable taxonomy. It is 

 the monotypic (or small) genera, with a very local or restricted distribution, 

 and often with only very distant or very doubtful affinity with known plants, 

 which always rejoice the heart, while they often perplex the mind, of the 



gystematist. 



