INTRODUCTION, 5 
large area; but Hypna of the group Brachythecium appear to 
be wanting in the plain of the Amazons, and also in Brazil, the 
species appearing to be almost confined to the Andes. 
Fissidens, as might be expected, presents a great number of 
minute species, but has but very few of an imposing size ; it is, 
however, accompanied in the Equatorial Andes by two allied 
genera, one of which is peculiar to that region, and the other 
has been found elsewhere only in the remote islands of Tristan 
d'Acunha and Bourbon. 
The Polytrichee are remarkable for the number of the spe- 
cies referable to the genus Polytrichadelphus, which has only 
one other species in British Columbia, and another common to 
New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia; in South America the 
species appear to be distributed along the mountains from the 
Bogotean Andes to Fuegia, only one species being present in the 
Brazilian mountains. 
Sphagna are found in the West-Indian Islands, in Mexico, 
also in the Bogotean Andes and at a few places in the region of 
the Amazons, but were not found by Mr. Sprucein the Quitenian 
Andes; they occur in Brazil, and are probably more plentiful 
towards the southern extremity of the Andes of Chili. 
In some instances it has been found impossible to identify 
species stated to be not rare, and they probably appearin the enu- 
meration' under other names as well as under those to which 
they are more correctly entitled; for it frequently happens that 
the omission of some minute particular, in a description which 
may have appeared to the describer sufficient for the identifica- 
tion of the species intended, has rendered it impossible to assign 
with exactness the position it should occupy in an arrangement, 
for very lengthy descriptions, which are required when a few 
species are described as fragments of a Flora, become less neces- 
sary when all the chief characters can be supplied by a careful 
arrangement of the individuals into groups to which they are com- 
mon. It was with this conviction that the first idea of a complete 
catalogue of South- American Mosses, which should include all the 
numerous additional species gathered by Mr. Spruce, digested 
into some order, has led to the amplification and completion of 
the following enumeration, which, with its doubtless numerous 
errors, may serve as a point of departure in the investigation 
of the Mosses of the vast regions included in the territory to 
which it relates. 
