- XXVIII. Remarks on the Bryum margi atum and Bryum lineare 
of Dickson. By Sir James Edward Smith, M. D. F. R. S. P.L.S. 
Read April 19, 1814. 
Havixo, within a few days past, had occasion to advert to the 
study of Mosses, I met with a remark of Bridel upon the sub- 
ject of Mr. Dickson's labours in this department of Botany, 
which, though of no great importance, requires correction ; espe- 
cially as the learned reviewer of Bridel’s work in the Annals of 
Botany, vol. ii. 333, has given it his tacit assent. After commend- 
ing, in general terms, the labours of our great cryptogamic botanist, 
Bridel accuses him of having sometimes published, as new mosses, 
what had really been described by other writers. The only in- 
stances given are two. Bryum marginatum of Dickson he rightly 
indeed says is B. serratum of Schrader; and B. lineare is nothing 
else than Dicranum pellucidum. The reviewer properly indicates 
that the last of these observations is not correct. Indeed so in- 
correct is this remark, that the plant of our countryman is a Tri- 
‚chostomum, the lineare of Fl. Brit. ; Mr. Dickson, though so de- 
spised by some critics, and by Bridel amongst them, for not 
attending to the peristomium, having, by his consummate skill of 
observation, distinguished by their other characters these two 
mosses, which his critics, it seems, confound. Nor is it a suffi- 
cient apology for the great author of the Muscologia to say (with 
the reviewer) that Mr. Dickson's figure of his Bryum lineare is 
such as to justify the mistake. ‘The figure is, indeed, though cor- 
rect 
