Pe a 
NortTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF LESKEA 475 
In nearly all specimens of this variety leaves from either stems 
or branches may be found sufficiently developed to show that they 
are identical with those of Z. zervosa, proving conclusively that 
var. #igrescens is only a retrograde form of this species. Moreover 
tufts are often made up of both plants growing together, the one 
bearing bulbils in small heads, the other a few on flagellate branch- 
lets. While these organs are usually sessile when in compact 
clusters, they sometimes appear on short flagellate stems, thus 
constituting a transitional form between those of the type and those 
of var. wigrescens. Such was conspicuously the case with a speci- 
men from Vermont (Dr. Grout). 
10. LESKEA DENTICULATA Sullivant, Musci Alleghen. No. 62. 
1845; Mosses of the U.S. 59. 1856. 
Hypnum fabroniacfolium C. Mill. Syn. 2: 271. 1851. 
Plants small, in depressed tufts, pale green, soft, somewhat 
silky ; stems prostrate, 2-4 cm. long, sparingly radiculose, 
irregularly branched, without central strand or paraphyllia ; stems 
and branches flattened when moist, sometimes subjulaceous when 
dry: stem-leaves close, erect-spreading, concave, subdecurrent, 
ovate, somewhat abruptly and narrowly acuminate, 0.5-0.7 mm, 
long, 0.3-0.4 mm. wide, ecostate, rarely with diverging striae ; 
margins plane, minutely papillose-denticulate; branch-leaves 
smaller, more gradually acuminate, 0.3-0.4 mm. long, 0.2-0.3 
mm. wide ; leaf-cells somewhat uniform, primordial utricle usually 
distinct, unipapillate on lower surface ; median cells oval-oblong 
to sublinear-rhomboidal, 6-8 » wide, two to four times as long, 
rarely longer and subvermicular; alar quadrate, thick-walled, 
passing abruptly to the median; marginal curvilinear, in a single 
row; cells of branch-leaves shorter, oval-rhombic to oblong: 
dioicous : pedicel smooth, 4-8 mm. long ; capsule oval-oblong, 
suberect; teeth linear-lanceolate, long-pointed; endostomial 
band?; segments nearly as long and as broad as teeth, carinate, 
cleft between the joints; cilia none; annulus none; operculum . 
rostellate from a broad highly convex or conical base ; calyptra 
cucullate ; spores ?, mature? On base of trees, rarely on rocks ; 
seldom fruiting ; sometimes flagelliferous. 
Type Locatity: Balsam Mt., N. C.; type in the Gray Her- 
barium, Harvard University. 
DistRisuTION: From New York (Austin) westward to Indi- 
ana (Haines) and southward to Florida (J. D. Smith); New 
Jersey (Austin); Pennsylvania (Burnett); Ohio (Biddlecome) ; 
