MR. W. MITTEN ON NEW SPECIES OF MUSCI FROM CEYLON. 293 
New Species of Musci collected in Ceylon by Dr. Thwaites. 
Described by W. Mirren, A.L.S. 
[ Read June 20, 1872.] 
SINCE the “ Enumeration of the Mosses of the East Indies ” in the 
‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society’ in 1859, con- 
derable additions bave been made to the flora of Ceylon through the 
species described by Dr. Carl Miller (Linnea, Band 36) from the 
collections made by Dr. Neitner; and by the species described in 
the following pages Ceylon appears to have a rich moss-flora, 
approaching to that of the Indian archipelago by the presence of 
species of Garovaglia, numerous forms of Syrrhopodon, and Calym- 
peres, of those species of Macromitrium which have curved cells 
in the lower portion of the leaf, and of species of Chetomitrium. 
Among the species recently added to the flora of Ceylon by Dr. 
Thwaites there are some whose presence is very remarkable; of 
these, one is a Leptostomum, a genus of few species before con- 
fined to Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and the western coast 
of South America, the new species differing only in small parti- 
culars from those previously known. ‘The presence of this austral 
form in Ceylon seems analogous to that of the moss which was 
enumerated in the * Musci Indici" as PAyllogonium elegans, and 
supposed to be identical with the species so named and figured in 
that part of the Antarctic flora containing the flora of New Zea- 
land, and for which Reichardt has proposed the genus Orthorhyn- 
chium, “ perist. simpl. dent. ext. 16 «equidistantes sepe conflu- 
entes cartaliginei. Calyptra mitriformis campanulata multoties 
laciniata. Columella exserta." And C. Müller, Linn. Band xxxvi. 
p. 28 (from whom I have taken the above characters), in the same 
place, points out the distinctions by which the original species 
O. elegans differs from the Ceylon moss which he describes as O. 
Neitneri, the most important difference being derived from the 
imbrication of the terminal bud at the apex of the shoots, which is 
said to be open in O. elegans and closed in O. Neitneri, a distinc- 
tion which I have failed to verify. Two other species are also at the 
same time described as belonging to this genus :—O. Hampeanum 
from Sealer's Cove, Australia Felix, Dr. Mueller, the description 
of which agrees so well with Acrocladium politum (Hook. fil. et 
Wils.), a moss whieh Dr. Mueller has several times sent from 
other localities, that it may be feared it has been again mistaken 
