14 
rate, 2 to 4-lobed to about the middle, the sinuses usually obtuse 
or rounded, the lobes mostly plane but occasionally somewhat 
convex, broadly ovate, with rounded apex and entire margins; 
underleaves very rarely present, similar to the leaves but smaller ; 
leaves of the fertile stems in the upper part contiguous, sometimes: 
decurrent, the lobes becoming strikingly convex, crispate and 
irregularly sinuous or dentate; perichaetial bracts two pairs, simi- 
lar in size and form to the upper stem-leaves but more incised 
and subdivided ; inner bracteole free, usually 2-lobed, of the same 
character as the bracts; second bracteole (when present) similar 
to the inner one, but usually a little smaller and frequently bearing 
on its surface I or more ligulate appendages, a cluster of which, 
in some cases, entirely replaces the leafy expansion of the bract- 
eole; perianth ovate-cylindrical, exserted, terete except in the 
upper third, where it is very obtusely keeled, the mouth somewhat 
contracted, minutely denticulate; perigonial bracts in about 5 
pairs, imbricated, complicate, 2 or 3-lobed, similar to the leaves 
when explanate. 
Stems up to 2.5 cm. long, 0.50 mm. in diameter ; leaves averag- 
ing I mm. in length and 1.25 mm. in width; perichaetial bracts I. 
—1.25 mm. long by 22.5 mm. wide; perianth 3 mm. long, 1 mm. 
in diameter ; perigonial bracts 1.50 mm. long by 1.75 mm. wide; 
leaf-cells thin-walled, polygonal, in the middle of the leaf 0.044— 
0.064 mm. in diameter. 
Near Closter, New Jersey (Austin); Beach Mountain, Mount 
Desert Island, Maine (Rand). 
The plant is apparently as rare with us as it is in Europe, but 
it is undoubtedly often passed by. The wiry stems wind in and out 
among the branches of a sphagnum tuft and are completely hidden 
from sight, while the pale leaves are scarcely to be distinguished 
by their color from the sphagnum leaves among which they grow. 
When we pull the tuft apart, the deep purplish color of the stems 
becomes apparent and at once distinguishes the plant from its 
allies. The stem is pentagonal in section and is bounded by an 
epidermoidal layer of cells with thickened walls; on the postical 
aspect, the pigmentation is especially well marked and affects 
the walls of these cells, the rhizoids springing from them, and, to a_ 
less degree, the two or three layers of cells just within them; : 
